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THE BRAHMANS, THEISTS, AND 
MUSLIMS OF INDIA 



THE BRAHMANS, THEISTS 
AND MUSLIMS OF INDIA 

Studies of Goddess-worship in Bengal^ Caste ^ Brahmaism 

and Social Reform^ with descriptive Sketches of curious 

Festivals^ Ceremonies^ and Faquirs 



JOHN CAMPBELL OMAN 

FORMERLY PROFESSOR OF NATURAL SCIENCE IN THE GOVERNMENT COLLEGE, LAHORE 

author of 
"the mystics, ascetics, and saints of India" "Indian life, religious 

AND social" "the GREAT INDIAN EPICS " "WHERE THREE CREEDS MEET" 
ETC. ETC. 



WITH ILLUSTRATIONS FROM PHOTOGRAPHS AND FROM DRAWINGS BT 
WILLIAM CAMPBELL OMAN, A.R.I.B.A. 



HILADELPHIA 



P 

GEORGE W. JACOBS & CO. 
PUBLISHERS 






■/■ 



y^/^ lat> 



7 pi 

erf 



All Rights Reserved 




My object in writing this book being to interpret, however 
imperfectly, the present-day Indians to the English public, 
I have done my best to bring my readers into actual touch, 
as it were, with contemporary India at various points, using 
my somewhat exceptional personal experiences, as much as 
possible, in illustrating and elucidating the subjects dealt 
with, which, although by no means esoteric, have yet to be 
sought for, and do not, in ordinary course, come within the 
ken of Europeans in India whether official or non-official. 
Following the plan adopted in my previous books, I 
have included in this volume such legends and stories as 
seemed to me to throw light upon the habits or the mental 
peculiarities of the Indian people. 

The figures recorded in the recently published Eeport on 
the Census of the Empire show that more than a half of the 
3ntire number of men and women under British rule follow 
he Hindu religion ; that Islam claims another quarter of 
■he inhabitants of the Empire, and that the remainder is 
.ade up of Christians {including those of the United King- 
dom, Ireland, the Colonies, and India), and of Buddhists, Jains, 
Jews, etc. 

Very striking and significant figures indeed are these, and 
may well awaken many trains of thought and speculation. 



PREFACE 

Confining our attention to India (with Burmah), we find 
that when the last census was taken (1901) there were in 
those vast territories less than three millions of Christians 
(Europeans and Natives all told) against two hundred and 
seven millions of Hindus, and over sixty-two millions of 
Muhammadans, each of these divisions being composed of a 
rj7'eat variety of races and nationalities speaking diverse tongues. 

The Buddhists, Jains, Sikhs, Animists, etc., inhabiting 
India and Burmah made up a further total of about twenty- 
two millions. 

These notable statistics are enough to make it clear that 
out of the vast and profound ocean of Indian social and 
religious life, it was only possible for me to take just a few 
examples of what may be gathered in that obscure yet 
seductive region of investigation. 

Hinduism, with its enormous and varied following, its 
heterogeneous structure and its fascinating remoteness from 
European feeling and sentiment, afforded the largest choice 
of subjects and occupies the major portion of this volume. 
But Islam, which, as regards numbers, ranks next amongst 
the religions of India, has also a place in the book ; being 
represented — no doubt very inadequately — by two papers 
(" Muharram " and " Faquirs ") intended to bring into view 
some of the more salient features of that great Semitic 
cult so nearly allied to Judaism. 

In describing and commenting upon such examples of 
Indian beliefs and practices as I have selected to lay before 
my readers, my own limitations have been ever present to 
my mind, yet I claim that my constant endeavour has been 
towards accuracy of statement and fairness of interpretation. 

To my son, Mr. W. Campbell Oman, I am indebted for 
the illustrations which appear in this volume ; also for 
reading the entire MS. of the book very carefully, and help- 
ing me with many suggestions. 

J. C. 0. 

MuswELL Hill, London, N. 



CONTENTS 



FAUE 

Preface .. i ..... v 



PART I 

CHAPTER I 

KALI-GHAT AND HINDUISM (GODDESS-WORSHIP) 
IN BENGAL 

Section I.— The Kali Cultxjs — Legends of the Goddess 
AND Temple 

Kali-Ghat — Architectural peculiarities — Insignificance in comparison 
with Western and even other Hindu temples — Sacxificjal st9.kes — 
Bloody character of ritual — Human sacrifices — Unseemly scrim- 
mage — Forms in -which Kali is represented — Worshipped as " giver i 
of victory " — Her legendary — Special claims to veneration of the 
temple of Kali-Ghat — Absence of beauty from the Kali cultus — 
Swinging festival — Why women are more religious than men — 
.Interesting incidents in connection with Kali worship — Sub- 
ordinate temples — Politics and the temple . . . S 

Section II. — The Wokship of Durga 

The Goddess Durga — Hindu idea of the acquisition of supernatural 

power by means of austerities — The Durga pujali — Its excesses . 21 

Section III. — The widespeead Influence of Dukga and Kali 

Three-fourths of the Hindus of Bengal worship Durga and Kali — 

These cults have extended beyond the limits of India proper . 24 

Section IV. — The Saktas 

Indian worship of the Female energy in Nature — Obscene rites — 

Position of women in Bengali society . . . .26 

Section V. — The Religion of the Educated Glasses 

The Higher Hinduism — Inoperative as regards the masses — Religion 

a sacred disease ....... 30 



u- 



W 



CONTENTS 

CHAPTER II 

CASTE IN INDIA 

Section I.— The more obvious Features of the Present- 
day Caste System 

PAGE 

Hindus divided into castes — Numerous main tribes and castes — 
Examples of Hindu exclusiveness — Contamination may result 
from the mere touch of a European — Hereditary character of 
handicrafts and occupations — Commensalism, its rules and 
difficulties — Disregard by certain persons of the prescribed rules 
about eating with other than caste-mates — Origin of the Pirali 
Brahmans of Bengal — Nuptial laws and their application — 
^Panchayats and their uses — Exclusion from caste — Ceremony of 
/ expulsion — Nature of the penalty of expulsion — Eeadmission to 
the privileges of caste . . . . . .34 

Section II. — The Origin of the Caste System as 

EXPLAINED BY THE PaNDITS 

The four varnas or castes and theu' duties — Myth of the origin of the 
castes — Arrogance of the Brahmans and their extravagant pre- 
tensions — Privileges enjoyed by the Brahmans under Hindu law — 
Conflict between Brahmans and ^sbatriyas — Extermination of 
Kshatriyas by Parasharama — Orthodox view of the origin of 
many well-established castes . . . - . .49 

Section III. — The existing Hindu Caste System contrasted 
vi^iTH the Theoretical System of the Old Books 

Seven Indian castes noticed by Megasthenes — Multiplicity of castes 
found at present time — Mr. Risley's general statement with 
respect to Sudras in diff'erent parts of India — Occupational gi'oups 
— The castes of to-day not necessarily identical with those of the 
past — Contemporary Brahmans, their peculiarities, occupations, 
and customs — Caste the distinctive feature of Indian life — Caste 
and Karma — Caste among Muslims . . . .55 

Section IV. — Caste outside the Hindu System, a 

DiGRESSIONAL StUDY 

Caste exists in European communities — Hereditary caste distinctions 
have often been fixed by law in Europe and exist in the aristo- 
cracies of to-day — Caste prejudices most pronounced where white 
and coloured races meet — United States of America and South 
Africa are good examples — Caste prejudices are not due to 
instinctive race antipathy but to desire to exploit "inferior 
races" — Much vilification of subject races inevitable — Summary 
of the causes which ensender caste distinctions . . .63 



CONTENTS 



Section V. — An Attempt to throw some Light on the 
Genesis and Evolution of the Hindu Caste System 



PAGB 



The Sanskrit word for caste varna (colour) indicates tliat the Hindu 
caste system originated in racial differences — Aryan invasions of 
India took place in the past — Certain class divisions were estab- 
lished amongst the invaders for their own security — With the 
advance of Aryan bands into the interior, intermarriage with 
aborigines thougli tabooed would take place and new mixed 
classes or castes would arise — Ethnological facts, certain peculi- 
arities of Hinduism, and the exceptional position of the Brahmans 
throw light on the subject — The origination of new castes takes 
place even now — Caste system owes its vitality to the influence 
of the Brahmans, whose ascendancy depends upon it . .75 



Section VI. — Caste considebed with respect to its 
Political and Economic Aspects and its probable Future 

Orientals not necessarily more burdened by rules of social intercourse 
than "Westerns are — Attitude of British Government towards 
caste — OfBcial disregard of caste prejudices has often led to 
serious trouble — Caste as a political force — Caste from the 
industrial point of view — From the ethical standpoint — Caste, a 
bulwark of Hinduism, is being undermined by commercialism and 
Mammon-worship — Railways, hospitals, and other institutions 
inimical to caste — Effects of English education — The probable 
future ........ 86 



CHAPTER III 

THEISM IN BENGAL— A STUDY IN BRAHMAISM 

Section I. — Ram Mohun Roy, the Bengali Theistic 
Reformer — His Life and Work 

Assailed by Islam and Christianity, Hinduism has developed diverse 
sects — Not the least interesting is the Brahma Samaj founded by 
Ram Mohun Roy — Early days of R. M. Roy — Settles in Calcutta 
(1814), and occupies himself with religious controversies and social 
reforms — Hindu College established in 1817 — Mr. Derozio's pro- 
fessorship (1828-31) and teaching — A great convulsion produced 
in Bengali society — Dr. Duff makes some converts to Christianity 
— Ram Mohun Roy founds the Brahma Samaj (1830) — Proceeds to 
England as envoy of Mogul Emperor — His reception in England — 
Dies there (1833) — His character and work . . .99 



CONTENTS 



Section II. — Debendea Nath Tagore and the Adi Brahma 
Samaj — The First Schism led by Keshub Chundee Sen 

PAGB 

Ram Mohiin Roy dies in debt and the Samaj becomes all but extinct — 
In 1841 Debendra Natli Tagore takes the Samaj in hand — Insti- 
tutes new rules for its management — Abandons the Vedas as 
inconsistent with the religious convictions of the Brahmas — The 
sect now falls back upon intuition and reason — Rules for the 
conduct of ceremonies — A new progressive party arises under the 
leadership of Keshub Chunder Sen — Rupture between Progressives 
and Conservatives — Two distinct societies are formed, the Adi 
Brahma Samaj and the Brahma Samaj of India — History of Adi 
Brahma Samaj till Debendra Nath's death . . . 110 



Section III. — Early Troubles of the "Brahma Samaj of 
India " — Act passed by Government to legalise Brahma 
Marriages 

The catholicity of the Brahma Samaj of India indicated by the use of 
the Scriptures of all the principal religions — Keshub visits Simla 
on business — Marriages performed according to the rites of the 
sect considered invalid — Act passed by the Legislature in 1872 to 
remove difficulty — Effect of such legislation on Hinduism . 117 



Section IV. — Keshub Chunder Sen worshipped by some 
Followers — His Views in respect to his own Mission — 
Visit to England — Result 

Worship of Keshub Chunder by certain members of the Samaj — Public 
protest by two missionaries of the sect — Keshub's views of his 
own mission to the world as explained in his public utterances 
(1866-69) — His hoped-for synthesis of all religions — Keshub 
visits England 1870, and receives a most flattering reception — 
The effect produced upon his mind — His farewell speech at 
Southampton contrasting the East and the West — Effect of 
Keshub's English experiences on his character and actions . 122 



Section V. — Keshub Chunder Sen's Proceedings which lead 
to a New Schism and the Founding of the "Sadharan 
Brahma Samaj" 

Keshub establishes various institutions, schools, etc. — Opposes the 
removal of the purdah during divine service — His attitude 
towards the sex — Doctrine of adcsh or special inspiration — Keshub 
establishes an order of devotees (1876) — Practises Yoga and 
neglects practical affairs — His autocratic methods pi'ovoke opposi- 
tion — Marriage of his daughter at a premature age and Avith 
Hindu rites leads (May 1878) to another schism and the forma- 
tion of the Sadharan Brahma Samaj , . . ,129 



CONTENTS 

Section VI. — Keshub believes himself to be a Prophet — 
Pkoclaims the New Dispensation — Its Aims and Objects — 
Keshub's Death and subsequent Histoey of the Sect 

PAOB 

Keshub believes himself to be a prophet — His views Avith respect to 
Christ and Christianity — Declares for Pantheism — Recognises in 
the Supreme Being the Mother of Mankind — Flag processions in 
honour of the Divine Mother — Proclaims the NeAv Dispensation — 
Countenances Hindu idolatry — Flag of the Ncav Dispensation — 
Pilgrimage to an imaginary Jordan — Communion with departed 
saints and prophets — Celebrates the Eucharist M'ith rice and 
milk — The object and aim of the New Dispensation — Theatrical 
exposition of the new cult — " Asia's Message to Europe " — Keshub 
maintains the truth of all established religions — Idea quite 
consistent with Hindu sentiment, but alien to the ideas of Jew, 
Christian, and Muslim — Keshub's death — Estimate of his character 
and work — Later history of the Church of the New Dispensation . 134 

Section VII. — Summary and Conclusion 

Recapitulation — Results of seventy-five years of theistic agitation — 
How far are the conditions prevailing in India favourable to the 
establishment of a neAV religion — The chances of a stable and 
enduring cult growing up in connection with Maharshi Debendra 
Nath — Brahmaism in its social aspect — The great reaction in 
favour of Hinduism— Relations of Christianity and Brahmaism — 
The ascendancy of English and American Unitarians will be fatal 
to Brahmaism . . . . . . .151 



CHAPTER IV 
HINDU SOCIAL REFORMERS 

Introduction — Forces tending to bring about Changes in 

Hindu Social Life . . . . . .158 

Section I — Reformers in Council 

Many forces in operation tending to introduce changes in Hindu 
social life — Reformers of various types — Much shallow criticism 
of Hindu customs indulged in by outsiders — Although assailed 
from many quarters the fabric of Hindu society will probably long 
resist such attacks — Yet important modifications are inevitable . 163 

Section II. — A Typical Reformer— A Yogi Lecturer on 
"How to make a dead Man alive" 

Description of the Yogi lecturer — His lecture and its peculiarities — 
His quaint and instructive parables — Temperance societies to 
be found throughout India and follow the ordinary methods of 
combating drink — A case of worshipping the spirit bottle — The 
temperance crusade helps to bring Hindus, Muslims, and Chris- 
tians together . . . . , . .167 



CONTENTS 



Section III. — Refokm of Marriage Customs"the Special 
Aim of certain Reformers 

PAGl 

Under Hinduism parents are bonnd to find husbands for tlieir 

daughters — The lot of the Hindu Avidow not enviable — A 

Parsce journalist as a reformer of Hindu domestic life — His 

intervention produces a long and bitter controversy — The case of 

\y jthe girl-wife Rukhmabai — Summary of the princii)al facts relating 

to infant marriage and enforced widowhood . . . I7i 



Section IV. — Infant Marriage 

Infant marriage an ancient institution — Support given to the custom 
by Hindu codes — Present-day reformers' interpretations of old 
texts — Physiological bearings of the matter — Infant marriage in 
India quite a different thing from what infant marriage would be 
if practised in Europe — Early marriages in Europe during the 
^ Middle Ages — Summary of the causes which originated and have 

encouraged the custom in India — Evils of the custom— Racial 
deterioration — The custom ensures a husband to every girl . 181 



^ 



Section V. — Enforced Widowhood 

Sati, the burning of a widow with her husband's corpse, a very old 
institution in India — An alternative of humiliation and discom- 
fort offered from early times — Sati made a penal offence by 
British Indian law, but still occasionally carried out — Some 
recent cases — Widow marriage sanctioned by law — Calamity of 
widowhood usually borne as a decree of Fate — Some mitigating 
circumstances — Widows sometimes driven to immoral courses 
and infanticide — A "cold Sati" described — Origin of Sati — 
Promotion of widow marriage — Permitted in certain castes — 
Present situation . . . . . . .191 



Section VI. — Temple Women 

The marrying of young girls to Hindu gods — Religious prostitution 

in India explained ....... 200 



Section VII. — The Old and the New Woman 

Life behind the purdah —Female education — Women advocates of 
women's rights — Pandita Rama Bai — Suggestion that Hindu 
widows should be specially trained as zenana teachers — Attitude 
of Indian men towards female education — Immodest bathing — 
Immoral songs at weddings — Women's dress — The new woman — 
The future 203 



CONTENTS 

Section VIII. — Soctal Intercourse between Europeans 
AND Natives 

PAGE 

All concessions towards this end will have to be made by natives — 
Occasional meetings of Europeans and natives at garden-parties, 
etc. — Indian ladies absent from such gatherings — Intercourse 
between Europeans and natives in connection with State and 
commercial business, shikar, sport, and freemasonry — Occasional 
visits of English ladies to zenanas — No real desire for each other's 
companionship — Officials wisely stand-offish — Free social inter- 
course a very far-off possibility ..... 228 



PART II 

CHAPTER I 

THE HOLI FESTIVAL IN UPPER INDIA 

Section I.— Procession— Obscene Exhibitions— Rites 
and Practices — Legends 
A great procession through the streets — Ribald songs and obscene 

exhibitions — Gods in the train — All classes of Hindus witness the w 
show with apparent appreciation — Underlying causes — When will 
it all cease ? — Rites and practices connected with Holi — Legendary 
explanations ....... 241 

Section II. — The Hola of the Sikhs (a.d. 1894) 
A new departure — The presumption of some women reproved . . 252 

Section III. — Pawitra Holi 
A pure Holi introduced recently by some Indian reformers, backed by 

Christian missionaries ...... 256 

CHAPTER II 

A LUNAR ECLIPSE IN INDIA 

Scene at the Pool of Immortality — Hindu legend of the cause of 
eclipses — Almsgiving — Progress of obscuration — Legends of the 
pool — Dawn ....... 258 

CHAPTER III 

ASHES TO ASHES 

Hindu Funeral Rites and their underlying Sentiments 
The cremation ground — How a Hindu should die — A funeral proces- 
sion — Explanations of certain beliefs about pinclas — Ceremonies at 
the gate — Wailings — Erection of the pyre — The last farewell — 
Cremation of the corpse — Post-funeral ceremonies and the beliefs 
underlying them — Cremation and interment contrasted . , 264 



CONTENTS 

PART III 

CHAPTER I 

THE MUHARRAM IN INDIA 

Section I. — The Historical Basis of the Great 
Celebration 

PAGE 

Why the Muharram deserves attention — The triumphs of Islam — 
Principal sects, Shiahs and Sunnis — Indian Muslims — Muharram, 
a Shiah celebration — Historical events on which the Muharram is 
based, including the slaughter of Imam Husain and his followers 
at Karbala — The Shiah religious and mystical interpretations of 
this tragic event . . . . . . . 279 

Section II. — The Passion Play of Hasan and Husain 
Its scope, object, and peculiarities . . - . . , 290 

Section III. — Open-air Ceremonies 

Bonfires — Marriage processions — Tabuts or Tazias — The Duldul — 

Karbala . . . . . . . .296 

Section IV. — A Tale of Muharram Rivalries . . . 307 

CHAPTER II 

FAQUIRS 

Legends and Stories of Muslim Saints and Religious 
Devotees both Ancient and Modern 

Introduction — A legend of Baba Farid — Baba Jungu Shah, a Punjab 
saint — The Khazanah-Wallah Faquir — Adventures of a pseudo- 
faquir — Iniluence of faquirs in secular affairs — A Syad's fire-bath 
— The faquir of Manasbal — The name of God . . . 311 



Index ......... 333 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 



^Bbahman at Prayer ..... 

For the Goddess Kali .... 
^Bathing in the River at Kali-Ghat 

Brahman at Prayer .... 

The Brahmo Mandir .... 
^Keshub Chitnder Sen . 

The Public-House .... 

^The New Style — "Mr. Chairman and Gentlemen 
^The Shameful Results of Intemperance 

The Holi Procession in Lahore 

Golden Temple and Sacred Tank, Amritsar 

^Bathers in the River Ravi during an Eclipse of 
the Sun ..... 

Burning Ghat, Benares 
\ Funeral Pyre referred to in the Text 

Tombs in Cremation Ground referred to in Text 

A Tazia Procession .... 
>> The Mosque of the Great Imambara, Lucknow 
v A Tazia belonging to a Guild of Butchers 

A Faquir from the Frontier . 
^THE Faquir of Manasbal 



Frontispiece 

. Page 3 

Facing ,, 6 

. „ 34 

. „ 99 

Facing ,, 134 

. „ 158 

Facing ,, 160 

„ 172 

,, 241 

„ 258 

Facing ,, 262 

. ,, 264 

Facing ,, 272 

. ,, 276 

. „ 279 

Facing „ 290 

„ 300 

• „ 311 

Facing ,, 329 



PART I 

KALI-GHAT AND HINDUISM (GODDESS-WORSHIP) 
IN BENGAL 

CASTE IN INDIA 

THEISM IN BENGAL (BRAHMAISM) 

HINDU SOCIAL REFORMERS 



KALI-GMAT amd 
MIMDUI5M -m 
BEM6AL - 




t 



>TA1E:*gOPPE:55*KAH 

3 



CHAPTER I 

KALI-GHAT AND 
HINDUISM IN 
BENGAL 

Section L— Visit to 
the temple — The 
Kali cultus — 
Bloody sacrifices — 
Legends of the 
goddess and her 
temple — Subordi- 
nate temjjles. 

(j'ALCUTTA, with 
its showy- 
palaces and its 
mean huts, its 
fleets of stately 
ships from Europe, 
and its lumbering 
country boats for 
traffic on the 
Hugh; Calcutta 
with its bazaars 
and marts had, for 
years, been well 
known to me. 
Fort William, re- 
miniscent of the 
early days of 
British ascend- 
ancy in Bengal, 
was indelibly as- 
sociated in my 
recollections with 
the incidents of 
" Panic Sunday " 
in the trying days 



BRAHMANS, THEISTS, AND MUSLIMS OF INDIA 

of '57. The Cathedral on the spacious maidan, and other 
churches of the great city, were connected in my mind with 
many pleasant memories. Near the little mosque, sur- 
mounted by a dozen minarets with gilded finials, situated 
at the corner of the Esplanade, I had often paused to watch 
the devout Muslim prostrate himself in worship of Allah. 
But Kali-Ghat, the world-famous temple near Calcutta, I 
had not seen until, after years of absence from the Indian 
Metropolis, a brief sojourn there was turned to account in 
a visit to the shrine. 

By the tramway was for me the most convenient way 
to Kali-Ghat. A ride of over three miles with a number of 
perspiring and somnolent Bengali companions brought me 
to the limit of the tramway line, where I alighted in a 
crowded suburb of thatched cottages embosomed in the 
exuberant foliage of Lower Bengal, made up of graceful 
palm trees, broad-leaved plantains, slender bamboos, and 
close-foliaged tamarinds. By tropical sunlight such greenery 
affords pictures of rare beauty, and after dark is often 
simply gorgeous with the living lamps of myriads of fire- 
flies, fluttering hither and thither in a sort of fairy revel. 

The small huts amidst the verdure, the homes of so 
many millions of people in Bengal, have some peculi- 
arities which can hardly fail to attract the attention of the 
European observer, and may detain us a moment because of 
their connection with the style of the temple architecture 
of Bengal, and as an interesting instance of the way in 
which physical conditions influence national types of archi- 
tecture. Of these huts the more rigid portions of the 
roofs, the roof -frames in fact, are made of the exceedingly 
strong, but very pliable, bamboo, of which an abundant 
supply is always available in Eastern India. To give this 
material sufficient strength to bear a transverse strain, it 
must be arched, hence the ridge pole, the hips and also the 
eaves of the cottages are all curved outwards. The effect 
of this mode of construction is, in the case of neatly 
thatched dwellings of modest dimensions undoubtedly 
pleasing ; but when the style is copied in brick or stone, it 
is by no means agreeable, though the favour it has gained in 
Hindustan may be inferred from the fact that it has found 

4 



KALI-GHAT AND HINDUISM IN BENGAL 

its way from Bengal as far west as Delhi and Lahore, and 
even Kashmir.^ 

From the tramway terminus to the temple I had to 
walk. My mere inquiry about the way to Kali-Ghat 
collected round me a crowd of men and women, who accom- 
panied me with evident curiosity to the shrine of their 
favourite and highly honoured goddess Kali-Ma (Mother 
Kali). 

In a few minutes I found my way into a paved court- 
yard surrounded by a high brick wall, and stood before an 
unimportant-looking building, said to be three hundred years 
old, which was nothing but a reproduction in brickwork 
and lime-plaster of the huts I have just described. There 
were in the temple before me the same characteristic curved 
ridges and eaves - lines already alluded to. In fact it 
resembled in form a rather tall Bengali hut with another 
much smaller one of the same kind surmounting it; this 
addition being designed to give a decent elevation to the 
structure. Such was the famous temple of Kali-Ghat which 
I had gone out to see. Its interest for Hindus centres in 
the ill-lighted chamber, the cella, wherein the presiding 
divinity, housed in mysterious twilight, receives the adora- 
tion of her awed votaries. No provision is made here for 
congregational worship, which is quite unknown and un- 
thought of amongst Hindus; though recently it has come 
into fashion with the small theistic sects called into existence 
by Western influences. 

Close by the temple on the south side stands an open 
pavilion or detached portico of moderate dimensions, for the 
convenience of the Brahmans and for visitors to the place ; 
and there are some small buildings for the accommodation 
of the temple priests and attendants. Near the pavilion, 
on the side farthest from the shrine, is the place of sacrifices, 
with its repulsive stakes all crimsoned with the blood of 
many victims. On the eastern side of the temple is a 
sacred pond known as Kundoo, and at a short distance 
towards the west flows Tolly's nullah, a small tidal river 
connected with the Hugli. To this stream, held sacred as 
being one of the original channels of the Ganges, there is a 

^ Dr. Fergiisson, History of Indian and Eastern Architecture, p. 518. 

5 



BRAHMANS, THEISTS, AND MUSLIMS OF INDIA 

direct road, between rows of little shops, leading from the 
temple gate to the bathing ghat on the river. 

An interesting and highly characteristic feature of Kali's 
temple is the number of shrines of other deities clustered 
about it, in architectural subordination it is true, but still 
challenging recognition, adoration, and offerings. To this 
point I shall revert later. 

Observing with critical eyes Kali's famous temple, 
which enjoys an immense reputation in India, I could not 
help asking myself how far one could reasonably draw 
inferences regarding the spirituality, the piety, the liberality, 
and largeness of conception of peoples and nations from the 
dimensions, arrangements, and architectural styles of their 
temples. A comparison of the Mandir of Kali-Ma near 
Calcutta with the shapely Parthenon adorned with the 
highest efforts of Greek plastic art, or the noble Pantheon 
of pagan Rome with its majestic dome ever open to the sky, 
or the stately mediaeval cathedral v>rith "its long drawn 
aisles and fretted vaults," or the grand Musjids of the 
Muslims with their graceful minarets, would no doubt 
sadly discredit Bengali ideals and artistic conceptions. Nor 
would Kali-Ghat bear comparison with Hindu temples 
elsewhere in India, and especially those impressive monu- 
ments characteristic of the Southern Peninsula. Yet religion, 
the whole-hearted desire to reach towards God and live in 
the divine presence, is not necessarily associated with the 
stately products of artistic genius which have been rendered 
possible only through the lavish munificence of opulent 
States or rich individuals. Possibly the reverse might be 
true, and superb ecclesiastical edifices be characteristic more 
of cultured wealth than of earnest religion. Any way 
physical conditions and environments are very dominant 
factors in such cases, for, all things considered, it is hardly 
conceivable that a York Minster or a St. Mark's could be 
raised by men born and nurtured generation after generation 
on the low alluvial plains and amidst the rank vegetation 
of moist and enervating Bengal. Moreover, the absence of 
stone in the Gangetic delta is undoubtedly a very real 
drawback to the development of a stately and imposing style 
of architecture, though what can be done without stone is 

6 



KALI-GHAT AND HINDUISM IN BENGAL 

apparent in many European cities, — the Westminster 
Cathedral being the latest and perhaps best example. Even 
in India the architectural features of Calcutta developed 
upon European lines, and the huge, not ungraceful pucca 
buildings, which adorn the Muhammadan city of Lucknow 
show, clearly enough, the potentialities of brick construc- 
tion. Not Bengali architecture alone, however, owes its 
peculiarities to the climatic and geological conditions of the 
land, for the sensitive and sensual character of the people, 
who are not Aryans but of Mongolo-Dravidian race, also 
bears an unmistakable relation to the warm, damp climate 
and prolific soil of their country. 

To return to the temple after this digression. The door 
of the shrine itself was not open when I arrived before it, 
and several officious men, clothed merely in the usual dlioty 
or loin-cloth, with nothing but the sacred cotton thread of 
six strands as a garment for the person above the waist, 
offered to conduct me over the courtyard. They were 
hereditary priests, each entitled to, and eager for, his share 
of the profits of the establishment. There was really very 
little for these worthies to show the visitor, and when they 
had drawn attention to the places in the enclosure set apart 
for animal sacrifices, indicated too obviously by the forked 
stakes, to which the victims are secured, their duty as guides 
seemed over. At these sacrificial spots on the great annual 
festival of the goddess, and on certain other and not infre- 
quent occasions when rich worshippers visit the temple, 
goats, sheep, and buffaloes are sacrificed in hecatombs, their 
blood flowing like water before the shrine of the goddess, 
for she delights in animal sacrifices, and, as certain Hindu 
scriptures affirm, " constantly drinks blood." ^ Neither the 
bull nor the cow are of course ever offered here, these 
animals being considered sacred by all Hindus throughout 
India. Although my visit was not on a feast or festival 
day, there was ample gory evidence of the sacrificial activity 
of the j)riests of Kali, whose predecessors, only a few genera- 
tions back, immolated human victims, the traditions of 
these sacrifices being still religiously preserved in many old 

^ Tantras. See Sir Monier Williams, Religious Thoughts and Life in 
India, p. 189. 



BRAHMANS, THEISTS, AND MUSLIMS OF INDIA 

Bengali families in which, on the occasions of the Kali and 
Durga festivals, effigies are offered up in lieu of living men.^ 
" But for us," writes Sir John Strachey, " even in the province 
where education has made its greatest progress. Kali would 
still claim her human victims. Not many years ago, in a 
time of drought, near a railway station twenty-five miles 
from Calcutta, a human head was found before her idol 
decked with flowers, and in another temple in Bengal, a 
boy was savagely murdered and offered to the goddess." ^ 
So recently as June 1901 an attempt was made by one 
Gajadhur to sacrifice a man at Akhra, near Calcutta, before 
a newly made idol of Kali,^ 

Hinduism is associated, in the minds of so many in 
Europe, and even in India, with the idea of the most 
scrupulous tenderness towards all animated things — "the 
mild Hindu" is so proverbial a figure of speech — that it 
somewhat staggers one to walk about the shambles of a 
temple like this, and hear the boastful Brahman slaughter- 
man regret that you had not the good fortune of seeing the 
place on a gala day, adorned with its holiday carpets of red. 
So many centuries separate us from the sacrificial system of 
the Hebrews whose spiritual descendants we are, and we 
have become so oblivious of the bloody sacrifices of our Norse 
ancestors, that we almost fail to realise the aims and effects 
of such a system until we are thus confronted with pools of 
the warm blood of animals killed to propitiate the arbiters 
of man's destiny. 

The flesh of a number of the victims slain daily at 
Kali-Ghat is sold for the ordinary consumption of the 
orthodox Hindu, and as the business is a profitable one, a 
regular charge being levied by the priests for each animal 
killed within the sacred courts of the temple, rival shrines 
have been set up in several parts of Calcutta to meet the 

^ Dr. Rajendra Lalla Mitra, Indo-Aryans, vol. ii. p. 109. 

^ Sir John Strachey, India, p. 354. 

The Kalika Purana says : " The flesh of the antelope and the rhinoceros 
give my beloved (Kali) delights for five hundred years. By a human 
sacrifice, attended by the forms laid down, Devi is pleased for a thousand 
years, and by the sacrifice of three men, a hundred thousand years." — Rev. 
J. W. Wilkins, Hindu Mythology, p. 262. 

* Civil and Military Gazette (Lahore), 3rd July 1901. 



KALI-GHAT AND HINDUISM IN BENGAL 

demand, apparently an increasing one, for sanctified butchers' 
meat} 

Before the closed door of the temple I waited a long 
time to have a glance of the interior and of the dread 
occupant, who, I recalled to mind, was the patron goddess 
of that nefarious sect of assassins, the well-known Thugs of 
India, and of thieves and robbers of all kinds, some of whom 
might, for all I knew to the contrary, have been present there 
that morning, paying their respects to their grim protectress. 

A partial opening of the door induced me to press 
forward, and a hint, not difficult to understand, made me 
throw some small silver coins towards the officiating janitor, 
who could, if so minded, afford me a better view of the 
image of the goddess. Hardly had the little shining pieces 
of British money rung out their true tones on the floor 
outside the temple door, when, to my great surprise, the 
space near the entrance, in view of the great goddess 
herself, became the scene of an animated and most unseemly 
struggle. Some girls were amongst the first to get posses- 
sion of the bright pieces as they clinked upon the floor, but 
in the strife with the angry covetous Brahmans, they soon 
lost them, although they fought and struggled on the 
ground like little furies. One rather pretty girl of about 
eleven or twelve years of age, of slight and graceful figure, 
dressed in the national saree of thin muslin, had had her 
delicate wrist cut with her bangles in the indecorous battle 
I had unintentionally raised. Showing me the bleeding 
wound, she insisted upon baksheesh. Not a moment's peace 
would she give me. Her blood was evidently upon my head, 
and nothing but baksheesh could wash the stains away. 
The little martyr's persistence, aided perhaps by her good 
looks, secured for her what she wanted, but immediately 
gave rise to a chorus of petitions from many bystanders, 
which, needless to say, received the attention it deserved. 

After the struggle was over, I got a glimpse of the 
goddess from a short distance through the doorway ; but as 
a large crowd had been gathered by the expectation of more 
largesse, I was not encouraged to make a nearer scrutiny of 
the idol. However, I had not lost much in getting only an 

^ Shib Chunder Bose, The Hindoos as they are, p. 148. 

9 



BRAHMANS, THEISTS, AND MUSLIMS OF INDIA 

imperfect view of Kali in her gloomy temple, for the 
horrific figure of the goddess is a familiar one to every 
resident in Bengal, and I knew it well, having seen it on a 
hundred occasions. Moreover, it is a form to be remembered 
for its grotesque and startling ugliness, — a hideous black 
woman enjoying the possession of no less than four well- 
developed arms, and with a huge pointed blood-red tongue 
hanging out of her mouth. In one hand she holds a 
drawn sword, in another the severed head of a mighty 
giant, while the other two hands are supposed to be 
engaged in welcoming and blessing her votaries. Thus 
in her visible manifestation does the goddess unite her 
attributes of avenger and protector of her people. 

Such then, in outward semblance, is the Goddess Kali 
of the Bengalis. Sometimes she is represented standing 
with one foot planted on the breast and the other upon 
the thigh of her prostrate husband, the great God Siva. 
When so depicted, her girdle (she has no other covering 
for her person) consists of the severed hands of her defeated 
foes. For ornament the terrible being wears a necklace of 
the heads of giants whom she had slain, and whose warm 
blood she had actually quaffed in savage delight. Her ear- 
rings are the dead bodies of her slaughtered enemies. Such 
is this terrible object of adoration ! who in this form appears 
to her worshippers as the very embodiment of power, and 
to whom her trustful, if timid votaries, appeal for brave 
hearts and martial ardour. In the Mahabharata, Arjuna, 
acting on the advice of Krishna, offers a special prayer for 
success to Kali, the "giver of victory," ^ and similar in- 
vocations are still addressed to her, though by less formidable 
persons than that famous son of Kunti. Only a few years 
ago, a Hindu vernacular paper made the following sad and 
significant appeal to the goddess : — 

" 0, Mother, behold, we are fallen. We hav« been 
deprived of our old martial spirit. Thy sons are now 
a pack of arrant cowards, trampled under the shoes of 
the Mlechchas,^ and so dispirited as to lose all sense 
when angrily stared at by them. Thou art power 

^ Mahabharata — Bhisma Parva, Section xxiii. 
2 A contemptuous term applied to Europeans and other barbarians. 

10 



KALI-GHAT AND HINDUISM IN BENGAL 

perfected. How canst thou tolerate such emasculation 
of thy dear sons ? 0, Mother, take pity on India, and 
infuse the timid souls of thy children with the force of 
thy invincible power." ^ 

No one can tell in what age it was that divinity revealed 
itself to the spiritual vision of some aboriginal or Dravidian 
seer in the grotesque form of Mother Kali, nor does any 
record exist regarding the audacious hand that first modelled, 
in the plastic clay of Bengal, those awful features which 
have so strange a fascination for the children of the soil, 
crudely embodying in visible form the very real dread of 
femininity always working in the minds of a most sensuous 
people, too prone to fall before the suhtle powers of the 
weaker sex. This, however, we may boldly affirm, that the 
events we refer to occurred long ages ago. And it is only 
reasonable to believe that the strange shapes of Kali, and 
some other gods and goddesses of the Hindus, must have an 
immense antiquity, must, in fact, date back to primeval 
times, and may be regarded as only the fantastic shadows of 
divinity, seen by the untutored savage in the dim twilight of 
the world's morning. 

For those who delight in explanations of religious 
mythological fancies, the following will have interest : " In 
India, however, as in the Western world, there was a 
constant tendency to convert names into persons, and then 
to frame for them a mythical history in accordance with 
their meaning. Thus two of the ever-flickering tongues of 
the black-pathed Agni were called Kali the black, and 
Karali the terrific ; and these became names of Durga, the 
wife of Siva, who was developed out of Agni ! and a bloody 
sacrificial worship was the result." ^ 

How simple all this appears. But is it really true ? 

That, as in Kali's case, one of the highest and most 
respected deities of the Hindu Pantheon should have a 
monstrous form, is at least noteworthy. The Teutonic gods, 
though sometimes maimed, as the one-eyed Odin, or the 
limping Loki, are by no means monstrous. Amongst the 

^ Reproduced in the Civil awl Military Gazette (Lahore), 25th December 
1890. 

^ Cox, Mythology of the Aryan Nations, p. 421. 

II 



BRAHMANS, THEISTS, AND MUSLIMS OF INDIA 

Greeks the shapeless wooden xoana which were amongst the 
earliest objects of worship, made way, at a comparatively 
early period, for higher artistic conceptions. It is true that 
terrible forms like that of the Artemis of Pellene were not 
unknown, but curiously enough some mythologists find the 
same Artemis to be no other than Kali herself, and believe, 
or imagine, they can trace the dread goddess of Bengal 
through Asia Minor and Greece to Imperial Eome.^ 

After the description I have given of the personal 
appearance of Kali, it is time to record what is taught 
regarding this embodiment of female prepotency, who 
commands the homage of so many millions of men. With 
respect to her recognition as a Hindu divinity, I think it 
may be assumed without rashness that the shrewd and 
politic Brahmanical priesthood, finding in their progress 
eastwards the ever mysterious Kali, a predominant power in 
the archaic religion of the aborigines of Eastern India, made 
a place for her in their great pantheon, and, as a consequence, 
the Hindu shastras under the deft hands of wily Brahmans 
soon contained ample evidence that the great goddess of 
Bengal was of the very first rank, being indeed the wife of 
the great God Siva. This process of adopting local gods and 
naturalising them as it were in the existing Pantheon, has 
been, and still is, a process familiar to Hinduism, and goes 
far to explain the heterogeneous character of the divinities 
who are revered by the Hindus. 

In the repulsive form in which Kali is worshipped, she 
is said to have successfully rid the universe of a dangerous 
giant, whom she overthrew in a terrific conflict, wherein the 
victorious goddess, carried away by the excitement of battle, 
indulged in an excess of reckless and ungovernable fury. 
After her victory she danced in such a frantic way that the 
earth itself was in danger from her. Siva tried to calm her 
frenzy, but failing in his object threw himself down on the 
ground amongst her slain enemies. Presently Kali found 
him und^r her feet. Eecognising her lord, she protruded 
her long tongue in astonishment, after the manner of Indian 
women, and immediately desisted from her mad dance of 
triumph, which had threatened to shake the world to its 

^ C. W. King, The Gnostics and their Remains, pp. 165-172. 
12 



KALI-GHAT AND HINDUISM IN BENGAL 

foundations. This is the commonly accepted legend ex- 
plaining the attitude of Kali standing upon the prostrate 
body of her husband; but a learned Brahman writer, Dr. 
J. N". Bhattacharjee, says^ that the true esoteric explana- 
tion, to be found in the scriptures known as the Tantras, 
is something very different and too obscene for possible 
explanation. Well did Edgar Quinet write : " Ne croyez 
pas, en effet, connaitre un peuple si vous n'etes remonte 
jusqu'a ses dieux." ^ 

It is a significant and noteworthy circumstance that 
Kali's gigantic and audacious opponent, like a host of 
others figuring in Indian mythology, was, according to the 
Brahmans, an ascetic who had acquired by the practice of 
severe austerities and the performance of suitable ceremonies, 
a degree of power which made him an object of terror to the 
gods of the very highest rank in the Olympus of the Hindus. 

Some reason must needs exist or be invented to account 
for the special claims to sanctity of the temple at Kali- 
Ghat. A suitable legend is, indeed, indispensable in such a 
case. One such, which, weird and grotesque in the extreme, 
amply fulfils all requirements, is narrated by Dr. Alexander 
Duff, the famous Free Kirk missionary of Bengal. The 
legend in question, derived no doubt from satisfactory local 
sources, is as follows : — 

" Brahma, it would appear, in his earthly form or 
incarnation of Daksha, had a daughter named Sati, 
who was given in marriage to Shiva. On one occasion 
a quarrel arose between Daksha and Shiva. The 
former then refused to invite his son-in-law to a 
splendid banquet which he resolved to give in honour 
of the immortals. To this insulting slight he also 
added the foulest reproach — stigmatising Shiva as a 
wandering mendicant, a delighter in cemeteries, and a 
bearer of skulls. On hearing her husband thus reviled, 
Sati, overwhelmed with grief and sorrow, hastily re- 
turned to the banks of the Ganges, and there determined 
to yield up her life ' on the altar of domestic affliction.' 
This, we may remark in passing, is the divine example 
constantly held forth for imitation to poor widows, 
who are greatly stimulated thereby to become Satis or 

^ Hindu Castes and Sects, p. 408. ^ Le genie des Eeligions, p. 12, 

13 



BRAHMANS, THEISTS, AND MUSLIMS OF INDIA 

Sidtees, by sacrificing themselves on the funeral piles 
of their husbands. Shiva, on observing the lifeless 
form of his spouse, became quite distracted. In the 
bitterness of his anguish, he thrust his trident through 
the dead body, and lifting it in the air, commenced 
dancing about in the most frantic manner. By the 
violence of his aerial motions, the three vs^orlds were 
shaken to the foundations. Gods and men were filled 
with alarm. Vishnu, the Preserver, hastened to arrest 
the threatened catastrophe. Shedding tears of sym- 
pathy, he endeavoured to console the frenzied husband, 
by reminding him that 'nothing was real' in this 
world, but that everything was altogether maya, or 
illusion. But Shiva's grief was too poignant to yield 
to any consolation based on a cold metaphysical ab- 
straction. As he continued to reel in agony, he burst 
into a flood of tears ; and these uniting with the sym- 
pathetic tears of Vishnu, formed a capacious lake, 
which afterwards became a celebrated place of pilgrim- 
age. Still he was utterly inconsolable. At length the 
Preserver shrewdly conjectured that were the object 
of his grief removed out of view, calmness would be 
restored to his agitated soul. Accordingly, armed with 
a scimitar, he continued as the body was whirling 
round to cut off one limb after the other. The different 
members, as they were successively severed — from the 
projectile force impressed on them by Shiva's violent 
movement — were scattered to different and distant parts 
of the earth. In the excess of his distraction, the 
bereaved husband discovered not his loss till the whole 
body had disappeared. His grief was then assuaged, 
and the universe dehvered from impending destruction. 
Soon after his beloved Sati reappeared, but in a new 
form, announcing that she had happily been born again, 
as the daughter of Himavan or Himalaya, the ruler of 
mountains. In this form she became known as Farvati 
(from Parva, the ordinary term for mountain) — insepar- 
able companion of Shiva. 

" In the meantime, the scattered fragments of Sati's 
body — amounting together with the ornaments to the 
exact number of fifty-one — conferred peculiar sanctity 
on the places where they happened to fall. All of 
these were consecrated as repositories of the divine 
remains, and adoration there became an act of extra- 
ordinary merit. At each, a temple was reared and 

14 



KALI-GHAT AND HINDUISM IN BENGAL 

dedicated to the goddess, and in it was placed an image 
representing one or other of her thousand forms ; along 
with an image of her husband Shiva, under the designa- 
tion of Bhairob, or fear-inspirer, in which capacity he 
acts as guardian or protector of the place ; and is always 
worshipped at the same time as his spouse. 

" The toes of the right foot of the goddess are said 
to have fallen a little to the south of Calcutta, on the 
banks of one of the cross branches of the Ganges — 
supposed to have been once the channel of the main 
stream itself. There they were buried in the earth, 
unsubjected to corruption or decay. The sacred spot, 
though illumined with beams of resplendent light, 
remained for ages undiscovered in the deepest recess 
of the forest. At length, in the vision of a dream, the 
site was made known by the goddess herself to a holy 
Brahman. Moved and directed by the heavenly oracle, 
he lost no time in raising a temple over the divine 
deposit. The temple, by express revelation, was dedi- 
cated to the goddess under her form of Kali ; and has 
ever since been famed under the designation of Kali- 
Ghat." 1 

In one of those eloquent sermons for which he was so 
famous, and which Sunday after Sunday some years ago 
filled St. Paul's Cathedral to overflowing, the late Canon 
Liddon said, " The idea of God kindles in the soul the sense 
of beauty, q,nd beauty that meets the eye suggests the 
immaterial beauty of the invisible King. No religion can 
afford, in the long-run, to neglect this instinct in the soul 
of men." With this in mind let any one go to Kali-Ghat, 
visit the pagoda there, study its surroundings, behold the 
grim goddess in her sunless shrine, and realise how great is 
the difference of the climate of religious opinions in which 
the eloquent Canon lived and breathed, and that which 
envelops the terrible four-handed goddess before whom 
millions of worshippers cower in abject terror.^ 

^ Rev. Alexander Duff, D. D. , India and Indian Missions, inchiding Sketches 
of the Gigantic System of Hinduism (Ediuburgli, 1839), pp. 248-250. 

^ ' ' Her black features, the dark niglit in which ehe is worshipped, the 
bloody deeds with which her name is associated, the countless sacrifices 
relentlessly offered at her altar, the terrific form in which she is represented, 
the unfeminine and warlike posture in which she stands, and last, but not 
least, the desperate character of some of her votaries, invest her name with 

15 



BRAHMANS, THEISTS, AND MUSLIMS OF INDIA 

The total absence of beauty, either sentimental or 
artistic, from the legends and the ritual of Kali-ism, is not 
compensated by anything ennobling in the religion of the 
dread goddess in whom robbers and cut-throats recognise a 
congenial patroness. Not many years ago, quite within my 
own personal recollection, men used to honour Kali by 
having themselves swung round a lofty pole suspended 
from the extremity of a cross piece pivoted at the top of it. 
They were supported by iron hooks passed through the 
muscles of the back. This barbarous mode of worship has 
been prohibited by the British Government, but I witnessed 
one exhibition of the kind before its suppression. In the 
case I saw, the man who undertook to be swung in honour 
of Kali, had the muscles of his back terribly stretched by 
the hooks ; but he was also supported by a cloth tied firmly 
under his arms, which somewhat relieved the tension and 
would have prevented his falling to the ground had the 
flesh given way under the severe strain to which it was 
exposed. As the man was whirled aloft high above the 
heads of the excited onlookers, he threw down amongst 
them small pieces of cocoa-nut and sweetmeats resembling 
comfits, while the drums made a deafening noise, and the 
multitude shouted "Victory to Mother Kali." Votaries, 
less bold than he, passed skewers or canes through the 
muscles of their sides and hands, and even through their 
tongues ; all for Kali, to whom no offering could be made 
more acceptable than blood, and in whose honour they 
danced about in wild enthusiasm. 

Blood being what Kali thirsts for and delights in, her 
worshippers gratify her to the utmost of their ability. 
" There is," says Dr. Eajendra Lalla Mitra, " scarcely a 
respectable house in all Bengal the mistress of which has 
not, at one time or other, shed her blood (a few drops) 
under the notion of satisfying the goddess by the operation, 
and rescuing some beloved object (perhaps a husband or 
son) from the jaws of death." ^ 

A simple touching statement of fact is this, beneath which 

a terror which is Avitliout a parallel in the mythological legends of the 
Hindoos." — Shib Chunder Bose, The Hindoos as they are, p. 137. 
^ Indo- Aryans, vol. ii. p. 111. 

i6 



KALI-GHAT AND HINDUISM IN BENGAL 

we may find the reason why women in general, everywhere 
and in nearly all stages of civilisation, are more religions 
than men. Elaborate if not entirely satisfactory attempts 
have been made to account for women's superior religiosity ; 
but, in my opinion, it is attributable mainly to certain 
physiological and domestic experiences essentially peculiar 
to women. Amongst these causes gestation and maternity, 
involving as they do a sense of dependence, stand first, 
for while intimately personal and always mysterious, they 
call into being special emotions and anxieties unknown to 
the stronger sex — emotions and anxieties which find natural 
expression in almost unreasoning affection and blind desire 
for help in the interests of the loved ones. Except perhaps 
in the " highest " modern civilisation, where women avoid 
maternity altogether, or else gladly delegate to trained or 
untrained hirelings the business of rearing their offspring, it 
falls to the lot of most mothers at some time or other to 
have to struggle, as it were, for the lives of their children or 
that of the bread-winner, and it is these, often prolonged 
and intense strivings with the Unseen Powers, lurking 
behind disease and death, which keep the light of religion 
burning, generation after generation, in the sensitive souls 
of mothers and wives, and will continue to do so till good 
mothers and good wives of the old type are in the process 
of time eliminated by the ultimate triumph of a soulless 
civilisation, built upon lucre and corroded with luxury. 

At the temple of Kali, the promised victim is despatched 
by the priest on receiving a certain fixed fee. He retains 
the head for himself, and places a little of the blood before 
the idol, to which the worshipper makes his obeisance and 
passes on, having fulfilled his vow and performed his duty. 

An interesting incident connected with Kah-worship in 
Northern India came to my notice in the early part of 
1893. It was given out during the heat of certain religious 
controversies in Lahore, between the orthodox and certain 
unorthodox sects of Hindus, that a worshipper of Kali had 
offered a slice of his tongue to the goddess as a sacrifice, 
and that the gratified divinity had miraculously restored the 
mutilated organ to its original state. Five days after this 
incident, a procession in honour of the event paraded the 

B 17 



BRAHMANS, THEISTS, AND MUSLIMS OF INDIA 

city on the 31st March 1893. This procession, as I saw it 
wend its way through the narrow streets of the native 
quarters of the town, was of the usual kind. Preceded by 
drummers and cymbal players who led the way, came a 
litter w^ell filled with long necklaces of white strongly 
scented flowers. ; Almost smothered beneath this floral 
tribute was a picture of the goddess, about six or seven 
inches long and three or four inches wide. Beside the 
litter walked the hero of the hour, but he declined to show 
the tongue which had been miraculously restored by the 
goddess. 

Behind the litter came a cart drawn by one strong well- 
fed bull. It carried a tukta-posh, or low wooden table, 
whereon were seated gods and goddesses. Mahadeva (Siva), 
Durga, Kali, and Ganesa were there, personated by men or 
boys, necessarily masked, as in the case of the elephant- 
headed Ganesa. 

A second cart of the same kind followed, one of the 
occupants indulging in disgusting buffoonery. Then came 
a third cart, so contrived as to be doubled-storeyed. This 
was filled with boys and men. 

The procession was poor and tawdry, yet the crowd that 
came out to take part in it, and the numbers who rushed 
out to see it as it passed along the streets, made a very 
considerable gathering. Women formed only a small pro- 
portion of the following; but they were in force on the 
sides of the road, at the windows, on the balconies, and on 
the house-tops. 

A native who had, at my request, visited the temple 
where the miraculous event occurred, told me that he found 
a vast crowd — mostly women — assembled there. On a 
tray he saw a piece of something very red indeed, and was 
assured by the attendants that it was the tongue of a man 
who had cut it off, and made an offering of it to the goddess. 
The man whose severed tongue was being exhibited was 
lying — wrapped up head and all — motionless on the floor 
of the temple, and the Pujaris (officiating priests) assured 
the visitors that before many hours would elapse the 
faithful devotee would have his tongue restored to a perfect 
condition. 

i8 



KALI-GHAT AND HINDUISM IN BENGAL 

A friend of mine heard a somwehat different story in 
the city. Her informants were girls of the Mission School. 
According to them, the self-mutilated person was a girl, 
well known to them, who had made an offering of her 
tongue to Devi as atonement for some sin or other. The 
goddess, they said, had forgiven the penitent sinner, and 
had graciously restored the tongue, all but one little piece, 
which left a cicatrice in evidence of her act of devoted 
self-sacrifice. One of the young persons who told the 
European lady about the miracle, added characteristically, 
" Oh, Madam, it is not true what you say about Devi that 
she cannot hear and answer prayer ! She can hear, and 
does answer prayers, and what you tell us is not true." 

And so the worship of the goddess flourishes, the hearts 
of her votaries being stirred to their depths by such irre- 
futable manifestations of her compassion and power. 

In the early part of this chapter (p. 6) I mentioned 
incidentally that many shrines cluster about the famous 
temple at Kali-Ghat, and I now revert to this interesting 
circumstance, which reveals to the most casual visitor the 
polytheistic character of Hinduism. 

I have before me a sketch-plan of the temple at Kali- 
Ghat and its environs, which a friend in Calcutta had 
prepared for me. This shows no less than fifteen minor 
temples standing in the neighbourhood of the principal 
edifice ; some near the sacred pond Kundoo, others on the 
side of the road leading to the river, and two alongside the 
bathing ghats. Of these smaller temples the greater number 
are dedicated to Siva, Kali's divine consort, worshipped 
under that well-known phallic symbol the lingam. One 
temple has been built in honour of Siva's son Ganesa, the 
God of Wisdom. Two or three of the shrines are, I fancy, 
erected to Siva under one or other of the thousand names 
which he is said to possess. But the most interesting of 
the minor temples we are considering is, in my opinion, 
an insignificant one within the main enclosure dedicated 
to Krishna (Vishnu) and his mistress Eadha. Now the 
presence of this shrine was to me a by no means unwelcome 
discovery, for it at least proved that the more recent and 
far gentler cult of the Chaitanite sect of Bengal, which 

19 



BRAHMANS, THEISTS, AND MUSLIMS OF INDIA 

dates from the beginning of the sixteenth century, had been 
able to obtain a recognised footing even in the gory strong- 
hold of the much older religion of Kali. And I accepted 
tlie fact as indicating a tendency amongst Bengalis towards 
less inhuman ideals than those which are embodied in 
Kali-ism, for Chaitanya, the apostle of the Krishna-cum- 
Eadha cult, was strongly opposed to all animal sacrifices. 
Moreover, when we call to mind that Hinduism is divided 
off into two marked divisions, namely, the cult of Siva, his 
consorts, etc., on the one hand, and the cult of Vishnu and 
his consorts, etc., on the other, the amicable contiguity of 
shrines devoted to the principal gods of these two main 
sections of Hinduism is not without significance. 

All who know the people of India will admit that they 
are on the whole extremely and genuinely religious, being, 
in fact, living examples of the belief that " the fear of God 
is the beginning of wisdom." ^ But though men and women 
everywhere turn appealingly to God in times of danger or 
trouble, it is rarely that they come to record publicly, in 
the divine presence, oaths in respect of their political 
engagements. Therefore I was struck by the fact, lately 
reported in the Indian newspapers, that at the height of 
the excitement aroused by the partition of Bengal, thou- 
sands of irate Bengalis had pledged themselves by solemn 
oaths taken before the dread goddess Kali, that they would 
refrain from using all goods of European manufacture. 
When analysed, the facts referred to reveal the hysterical 
nature and strong religious bias of the Bengalis, as also 
their eagerness to secure divine countenance and assistance, 
and at the same time disclose only too clearly their want 
of self-confidence and their mutual distrust. 



^ Even Dr. Alexander Duff, the great Scotch missionary to India, while 
lamenting the dark superstitions of the Hindus, often contrasts their re- 
ligious earnestness and sincerity with the lukewarmness of his own money- 
making and pleasure-seeking countrymen, i?.^., India and Indian Missions, 
pp. 202, 203. 



20 



KALI-GHAT AND HINDUISM IN BENGAL 

— continued 




Section II. — The Goddess Durga — Hindu idea of the acquisition of super- 
natural power by means of austerities — The Durga 2^ujah — Its excesses. 

'EEAT as is the prestige of 
Mother Kali in Eastern 
India, the favourite deity 
of the Bengalis is never- 
theless Durga, repre- 
sented usually as a golden 
coloured, ten-armed goddess 
with a gentle expression of 
countenance, even when 
engaged in slaying the giant 
Mahisha. She also is the 
consort of Siva, and as- 
sumed various forms for the express purpose of destroying 
dreadful giants and monsters, who, by the practice of 
austerities, had become a cause of great apprehension to 
the gods. 

In the composite Pantheon of the Hindus, it is often a 
difficult or even impossible task to assign a correct position 
to any particular divinity, as it often happens that one and 
the same god or goddess is worshipped under different 
names and forms associated with particular appearances 
and actions. Siva's consort, as Durga, is a special mani- 
festation of martial power for the destruction of certain 
beings obnoxious to gods and men, and the various shapes 
in which, under special names, she makes her different ap- 
pearances are commonly regarded as distinct divinities. 
Hence it comes about that of these manifestations of power, 
which are many in number, the goddess Kali already suf- 

21 



BRAHMANS, THEISTS, AND MUSLIMS OF INDIA 

ficiently described is one, and, next to the original Durga, 
the recipient of the highest honour and worship. 

There are many different accounts of the origin of 
Durga and Kali, but I pass them over, having no intention 
of involving myself in mythological details. As for the 
battles these warrior-goddesses fought with their giant 
opponents, they are such as only the wildest imagination 
could possibly have conceived. In Hindu legends one looks 
in vain for ordinary men and women. Only gods, super- 
human monsters, and perhaps ascetic saints as fierce, un- 
scrupulous, and powerful as the others, figure in the troubled 
pictures and dark creations of the myth-makers of India. 

Dreadful monsters and divine deliverers loom dimly in 
the early dawn of many religions; but in the cases we 
are now considering, the old gorgons and chimseras dire, 
together with their destroyers, appear to have somehow 
blundered into the daylight of the twentieth century, in 
their crude primitive forms, unmodified by time and un- 
softened by culture. 

The belief that the dangerous monsters of the primeval 
world of India acquired their supernatural power by means 
of sacrifices, austerities, spells, and ceremonies, is a note- 
worthy feature of Hinduism, well known to the most super- 
ficial student of Indian religions, and seems indeed to be 
the most important part of the stock-in-trade of the Indian 
mythologists. But more extraordinary than this strange 
idea itself is the fact that it has lost none of its freshness 
in the minds of the Indian people, and, as I have pointed 
out elsewhere,^ the Yogi of our own day is still a man who 
acquires superhuman power in the old way. 

In connection with the worship of the goddess Durga, 
vividly do I recall to mind the annual Durga pujali pro- 
cessions, as I have seen them times and often in the 
streets of Calcutta. On these occasions the excitement is 
intense, and the spectacle at night truly remarkable. The 
enthusiastic crowds of dusky worshippers, wrought up 
almost to frenzy ; the flaring torches throwing their 
yellow glare upon the gaudy idol carried aloft on the 
willing shoulders of men; the discordant and deafening 
^ The Mystics, Ascetics, and Saints of India. 
22 



KALI-GHAT AND HINDUISM IN BENGAL 

din of the drums and other instruments mingled with 
the tumultuous shouts of the thronging multitude, make 
up a spectacle and produce an impression not easily effaced 
from the memory. 

Of all the Bengali religious festivals the Durga pujah 
is by far the most popular. It is the season of annual 
family reunions, to which old and young travel long 
distances. It is the recognised occasion for the inter- 
change of presents, a time especially suitable for the 
exercise of benevolent feelings, and is often marked by 
extensive, sometimes large-handed liberality, both within 
and without the family circle. Eeligious ceremonies and 
the making of offerings and animal sacrifices occupy a 
large part of the three days of the pujah ; but the last 
of these usually presents a scene of orgiastic boisterous- 
ness, in which men intoxicated with fanaticism, smear 
themselves with the gory mire of the sacrificial slaughter- 
places, and then dance in delirious ecstasy before the 
idol, abandoning themselves, with the sensuality of their 
race, to immundicities of song and gesture which seem to 
be inseparable from the worship of the goddesses they 
adore.^ However, such scenes of religious excitement 
cannot last, and in the grey morning, at the conclusion 
of the pujah, the worshippers consign their painted clay 
idol to the water of the most convenient stream or pond. 
No doubt the festival being over, the presence of the 
goddess in the consecrated image ceases, and it loses its 
special sanctity ; yet, having even for a brief period 
harboured the celestial power, the effigy is too sacred 
to be exposed to profane handling, and is consequently 
dismantled, and committed to the purifying element.^ 

^ Shib Chunder Bose, The Hindoos as they are, chap. viii. 

2 A short article by Mr. B. C. Mazumdar, M.R.A.S., on the origin and 
history of Durga, purporting to show that the goddess was of non-Aryan 
origin, and that her worship was introduced into Bengal from the Vindhya 
mountains, appeared in the Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society for April 
1906. 



-J 



KALI-GHAT AND HINDUISM IN BENGAL 

— continued 



Section III. — Three-fourths of the Hindus of Bengal worship Durga and 
Kali — These cults have extended beyond the limits of India proper. 



I HE worship of Durga and Kali, 
attended in both cases with 
animal sacrifices on an ex- 
travagant scale, and with 
licentious songs and lewd 
dances of a highly unseemly 
character, is practically the re- 
ligion of probably three-fourths 
of the 46,740,661 persons who, 
at the date of the last census 
(1901), constituted the Hindu 
population of Bengal, the re- 
maining one-fourth being Vaish- 
navas or worshippers of Vishnu. Amongst the latter the 
Chaitanites, devoted to the Krishna-cum-Kadha cult, form no 
unimportant section, and include in their body sub-sects 
addicted to decidedly immoral practices. 

Bearing in mind that amongst the Durga, Kali, and 
Krishna worshippers are to be found men of every caste, 
every degree of intelligence and education, and every grade 
of society in a Province commonly considered to be the 
most advanced in India, the above facts and figures cannot 
fail to arrest the attention of the most casual reader, 
especially if he learn at the same time that the native 
Christian population of Bengal according to the already 
cited census was heloiv a quarter of a million. 

To the immense number of Durga and Kali worshippers, 

24 




KALI-GHAT AND HINDUISM IN BENGAL 

many millions of so-called Muhammadans in the eastern 
portions of the countiy might be added, for they, too, dread 
and propitiate these terrible female divinities, who have, 
moreover, a not inconsiderable following in other Provinces 
of India, outside the limits of Bengal, and even in the 
valleys of the Himalayas, the mountains of Nepal, and 
the great tableland of vTibet.^ Kali -worship has even 
penetrated into that exclusive stronghold of Buddhism, 
the no longer mysterious Lhassa.^ 

^ Throughout Northern In(5ia and the Punjab, Durga is worshipped in 
every Hindu family at the time of the Dosahra festival, which is in honour 
of Rama, but coincides in point of time with the Durga puj ah of Bengal. 

The Tantric worship has even extended to Tibet, and the Hindu Tantras 
have been translated into the language of that countrj'. 

Dr. Rajendra Lalla Mitra, Indo- Aryans, vol. ii. p. 105. 

2 Rai Sarat Chunder Dass Bahadur in a lecture on Tibet, delivered in 
April 1904 at Calcutta, mentioned that the goddess Kali was worshipped 
by the Tibetans, and that there is a temple at Lhassa dedicated to that 
goddess under the name of Shridevi. 

It is a rather curious and not uninteresting fact that Durga has even 
invaded the domain of modern science, a contemporary entomologist having 
named one of the Cicadida; of Eastern India Cosmo2)saltria durga, after 
the famous goddess. [A Monograph of the Oriental Cicadidcc, by W. L 
Distant, p. 56.) 



25 



KALI-GHAT AND HINDUISM IN BENGAL 

— continued 




-iwm 



Section IV. — Indian worsliip of the Female Energy in Nature and its 
obscene rites — Position of women in Bengali society. 

OTWITHSTANDING what has been said 
regarding the drunken orgies connected 
with the worship of female divinities 
in Bengal, it may startle many readers 
to learn that rites such as were prac- 
tised of old in Assyria, Babylon, and 
Phoenicia in honour of Ishtar, Nana, 
and Astarte, have their analogues in 
ceremonies and customs in vogue in India 
at the present time ; but such is the 
undeniable fact, and it is probable that 
the worship of the great nature goddess 
of Asia has never died out, but in some form or other has 
kept its hold upon the sensuous races of the East, justify- 
ing to some extent the belief that sexual morality is, after 
all, jJurement gSographique. 

In Bengal, and outside Bengal too, is to be found a 
sect known as Saktas, devoted to the worship of Sakti, 
the female energy in Nature, having as their Scriptures 
the Tantras. This form of worship evidently finds favour 
with the Brahmans, for Dr. Bhattacharjee, himself a Bengali 
Brahman, states that " the majority of the Brahmans 
of Bengal, Mithila, and Punjab are Saktas of a moderate 
type." He also says that the Karhadeh Bramans of the 
Mahratta country are Saktas, and adds that the members 
of the influential Kayastha caste are also mostly Saktas. 
The Sakta sect is divided into three sub-sects — 
1. Dakshinachari, or the right-handed Saktas, 

26 



KALI-GHAT AND HINDUISM IN BENGAL 

2. Bamachari, or the left-handed Saktas, 

3. Kowls, or the extreme Saktas ; 

and it must in justice be stated that the extreme forms 
of this worship are not held in general esteem by the 
bulk of the Hindus of Bengal, and consequently members 
of these sub -sects usually, though by no means always, 
conceal from the world the fact of their belonging to the 
brotherhood ; but that the rites referred to are secretly 
practised by great numbers of people, particularly Brahmans, 
both in and out of Bengal, there is no gainsaying. 

Of these secret rites, unseemly and unsavoury though 
they be, it is necessary that I should now state something 
more definite if my reader is to be in a position to under- 
stand the real inwardness of the Hindu religion, as it exists 
in Bengal, and therefore I reluctantly venture to record 
the following particulars. 

For the purpose of Tantric worship, eight, nine, or 
eleven couples of men and women meet by appointment 
at midnight. All distinctions of caste, rank, and kindred 
being temporarily suspended, they go through prescribed 
religious ceremonies, set up a nude woman, adorned only 
with jewels, as representative of Sakti (the female energy), 
worship her with strange rites, feast themselves on flesh 
and fish, indulge in wine, and give themselves over to 
every imaginable excess. During these orgiastic religious 
rites, every man present is, according to their pantheistic 
notions, Siva himself, and every woman there none other 
than Siva's consort.^ 

^ These facts I have ascertained directly from the people themselves ; but 
the reader desiring fuller information may consult on this subject : 

(l)Eev. AV. Ward, A View of the History, Literature, and lieligions of 
the Hindus, pp. 152, 153, and 232-234. (2) Professor H. H. Wilson, Essays 
on the Eelicjion of the Hindus, vol. i. pp. 254-263. (3) Professor Sir Monier 
Williams, IlcKgiovs Thought and Life in India, pp. 190-192. (4) Rev. W. 
J. Wilkins, Modern Hinduism, pp. 94, 95. (5) Dr. J. N. Bhattacharjee, 
Hindu Castes and Sects, pp. 407-413. The Muhammadau author of the 
Dabistan (a.d. 1615-1670) was aware of these practices, and refers to them 
in his work. — Shea and Troyer's translation, vol. ii. pp. 152-154. 

Some sixty years ago, according to a Bengali writer, "The Tantric 
worship flourished in Bengal with all its midnight horrors and corruptions " 
(Jogindra Chandra Bose's preface to the works of Raja Ram Mohun Roy), 
and there is no special reason to conclude that it has undergone any marked 
discouragement of late. 

27 



BRAHMANS, THEISTS, AND MUSLIMS OF INDIA 

Now, coexisting with the obvious polytheism of the 
Hindus is a subtle pantheism which embraces all that 
is best in Hindu speculation. Of this pantheism in its 
highest development, the essential religious spirit is, as I 
shall presently explain, a desire, a yearning for direct 
communion with the world-soul, and for ultimate absorption 
into the Infinite. This aspiration may be traced throughout 
all the vagaries of the strange cults which Hinduism has 
accepted and appropriated or itself developed under the 
influence of its environment and local antecedents. And 
even in the Sakti worship, where all seems impure and 
degraded, the same desire is, strange to say, distinctly 
recognisable.^ 

As, amongst the peoples of India, the Bengalis are, par 
excellence, the Saktas, or worshippers of the female energy, 
we may profitably pause for a moment to consider how 
their notions in regard to the position and treatment of the 
female sex have been affected by their religious conceptions. 
If general opinion is to be trusted, a Bengali mother is 
respected by her children in an almost extravagant degree, 
and the wife's position in most households is an honourable 
and honoured one, although both custom and religion require 
that girls in Bengal should begin married life at quite a 
tender age. 

In connection with the point we are considering, there 
is one feature of social life in Bengal which, though peculiar 
to only a small section of the community, should not be 
overlooked. I mean the practice of Kulinism or extensive 
polygamy by a certain class of Brahmans known as Kulins. 
This is confined to Bengal, and annually condemns to 
inevitable misery thousands of women, consigned — some- 
times a whole family of sisters, cousins, and aunts together 
— to the embraces of these Kulin Brahmans, whose object 
in such wholesale alliances is often merely pecuniary 

^ It is a curious fact that the vague "Religion of Humanity," the 
latest philosophical creed of the West, which we owe to the Positivists, 
encourages the worshii) of women, as the representative of humanity, and as 
suggestive of universal love. — Rev. Professor T. R. Thomson, Non-BiUkal 
Systems of Melirjion, p. 186. 

I wonder what this worship, if it does not die out very soon, will 
eventually lead to ! 

28 



KALI-GHAT AND HINDUISM IN BENGAL 

benefit ; for the parents of the brides have to continue to 
support them, while paying handsomely the high-caste 
husbands for the honour of their attentions. 

So objectionable and barbarous is Kulinism that if it 
did not actually exist, it might well be thought impossible 
in any community regulated upon rational principles. As 
often as not the Kulin husband selected for a girl, or a 
family of girls, is a decrepit libertine, tottering on the verge 
of the grave, and already united to scores of unwilling wives. 
What such a system must lead to is obvious, and need not 
be discussed. 



29 



KALI-GHAT AND HINDUISM IN BENGAL 

— continued 

Section V. — The Higher Hinduism explained — Inoperative as regards the 
masses — Religion a sacred disease. 




' Y brief sketch will have made it 
clear that Hinduism in Bengal 
is practically" the worship of 
goddesses, attended with the 
shedding of much blood, and 
these are peculiarities of the 
faith in Eastern India, includ- 
ing Assam. 

In the north-western parts 
of Aryavarta, the great gods, 
Siva and Vishnu, the latter in 
his Krishna and Eama incarna- 
tions, are the favourite deities, and their cults do not 
countenance animal sacrifices. 

Turning from bloody sacrifices, objectionable customs, 
and midnight orgies, it is a relief to be able to affirm that 
there is a brighter side to Hinduism (whether ancient or 
modern), a side which has of late become known, and even 
been much appreciated in Europe through the labours of 
Sanskrit scholars, and the preaching and writings of con- 
temporary Hindu reformers. 

Let me explain this important matter briefly. 
In the pantheism which pervades and colours all Hindu- 
ism, we find the following generally accepted doctrines. 

That the human soul is an emanation from the All- 
Spirit which is immanent in the universe, from which indeed 
all things proceed, and to which all things return : 

That the embodied soul has a natural longing for re- 

30 



KALI-GHAT AND HINDUISM IN BENGAL 

union with the First Cause, but is debarred from such re- 
union by the taint of its earthly desires, due, of course, to 
the corporeal frame in which it is imprisoned : 

That while such earthly desires remain unextinguished, 
and while earthly passions or longings continue to exist, 
the human soul is subject, on the dissolution of its corporeal 
frame, to be reincarnated again and again, perhaps through 
aeons of time, until finally emancipated from all mundane 
hopes and affections it is fit to be reunited to the pure 
source from which it sprang : 

That the circumstances of each embodied existence are 
the result of the works done in previous existences : 

That souls, according to their actions, may enjoy periods 
of happiness in this world, or the heavens of the gods, or, 
on the other hand, suffer periods of punishment on this 
earth, or in the hells reserved for evil-doers ; but the blissful 
ending is hastened or postponed by the actions of the soul 
in its successive incarnations, and will only arrive when 
the soul has emancipated itself from all hopes and fears : 

That consequently in every embodied existence, it is the 
soul's interest and duty to strive against worldliness, and 
to free itself from all carnal desires, so as to ensure its early 
release from the deadly trammels of matter, and to effect 
its own blissful reunion with the All-Spirit, a reunion 
assured in every case. 

Now, in these subtle doctrines, which are not of Aryan 
origin, and not traceable in the Vedic hymns, the cultured 
Hindu finds a satisfying explanation of the inequalities 
and apparent injustices of which he has experience and 
knowledge. He also finds sufficient reason for the worship 
of the gods who can bestow many blessings ; but he also 
learns that his final salvation must be worked out by his 
own soul, and depends entirely upon its Karma or actions. 

The doctrine of metempsychosis found its way to Europe 
during the Crusades. In the thirteenth century we find 
the heretical troubadours publicly accused of believing in 
the transmigration of souls and repeated reincarnations ; ^ 
while to-day the same tenets coupled with Karma have 
been accepted by and received vigorous support amongst 

^ J. E. Rowbotham, M.A, Troubadours and Courts of Love, p. 304. 

31 



BRAHMANS, THEISTS, AND MUSLIMS OF INDIA 

the active Theosophists of the United States of America.^ 
And the transmigration of souls as a recognised tenet finds 
acceptance in other new rehgious movements of our time." 

Although the truth of the doctrines stated above, like 
the verity of the corresponding dogmas of other creeds, 
can never he proved, still they are undoubtedly competent 
to afford hope, to teach resignation in existing troubles, to 
discourage worldliness and promote virtuous living. 

Thus we find that floating above the shoreless sea of 
chaotic superstition and gross licence, which is practically 
the religion of the Hindu masses, there are discernible 
bright clouds of purer doctrine and nobler sentiment. 
Unfortunately, however, they are very far overhead, cast- 
ing only an uncertain reflection of their beautiful forms 
upon the dark waters below; for truth demands the 
acknowledgment that although much that is elevating may 
be found in some sacred literature of the Hindus, and in 
the philosophico-religious teachings of Indian sages, these 
influences for good have but a limited effect upon the 
conduct of life amongst the masses of the Hindu population 
to-day, and truth equally demands the admission that the 
incongruity between doctrine and practice, in the case of 
Hinduism to which I have just drawn attention, is by no 
means confined to that faith, but is very conspicuous also 
in the other religions of the world, whether professed by 
Orientals or Occidentals. 

" But what," it may be asked, " is the attitude towards 
religion of the more intellectual classes in Bengal ? Surely 
they do not countenance the obscenities of popular Hinduism 
in their native country ? " 

English education has made considerable progress in 
Bengal, and some of its results are strikingly apparent in 
the persons of many Bengalis who hold and adorn some of 
the highest legal and other appointments under the British 
Government. I have had the pleasure of being fairly well 
acquainted with some highly educated Bengalis, and what- 
ever their private opinions might be, I know that, out- 

^ C. M. Leadbeater, The Other Side of Death (Theosophical Publishing 
Company). 

2 HibUrt Journal, October 1906, pp. 174, 175. 

32 



KALI-GHAT AND HINDUISM IN BENGAL 

wardly at least, they generally conform to the religions 
customs, and respect the social prejudices of their people. 
And more than that I should not like to affirm. The fact 
that Bengal produces many clever lawyers, successful 
physicians, capable professors, good orators, smart journalists^ 
persistent political agitators, and valuable public servants, 
is not sufficient ground for concluding that even in the 
case of these more advanced members of the community, 
the racial characteristics have undergone very much, if 
any, change. 

Old religious ideas, sentiments, rites, and customs 
derived from a remote past, enshrined in the national 
literature and folk-lore, woven indeed into the very fabric 
of a people's life, cannot be easily set aside, especially when 
the women cling to them tenaciously, with all the con- 
servative instinct of the sex. Hence it is highly probable 
that even at the present day, as in times past, the more 
thoughtful and cultured Bengalis are able, from the serener 
summits of what has been called the " Higher Hinduism," 
the philosophico-religious Pantheism of their sages, to 
regard with indulgent, and even sympathetic tolerance, the 
peculiar rehgious sentiments, customs, and practices in which 
they have themselves been reared. 

No one who knows the people of India will doubt for a 
moment that they are essentially a religious people, but when 
the actual outcome of their religious aspirations in the 
most populous and advanced province of the Indian Empire 
is such as I have briefly outlined in the preceding pages, 
one may be excused for giving a qualified adhesion to the 
doctrine of Heraclitus that religion is a disease, though a 
sacred disease. In Bengal, assuredly, religion would seem 
to be a morbid emotional affection, whether sacred or not, 
to which, in some form or other, every man and woman 
is subject ; and to-day, as in past generations, this morbid 
emotional affection tends to sap the manhood of the 
people and effeminate the race. 



33 



caste: 



.^jfj^ 



^ 




CHAPTER II 

CASTE IN INDIA 

Section I. — The more 
obvious features 
of tlie present-day- 
caste system. 

YEN the casual 
tourist in India, 
if he keep his 
eyes and ears 
about him, 
when his train 
stops on a hot 
day at any of the 
larger railway 
stations, will not 
fail to discover, 
as he watches the 
bustle and move- 
ment on the plat- 
form, and hears 
the shouts of the 
thirsty native 
passengers, that 
there are two 
watermen to 
supply the needs 
of the Hindus 
and Muhamma- 
dans respectively, 
the former carry- 
ing his store in a 



CASTE IN INDIA 

metal vessel, the latter in a leathern bag known as a 
mashk, and he may further note that the Muhammadau 
water-carrier will, if required, minister to the wants of the 
white soldiers in the second-class car, but the Hindu will pass 
them by, notwithstanding their importunities. 

These simple but significant facts will at once reveal 
the great gulfs of social exclusiveness which irreconcilable 
beliefs have produced in India, and serve to accentuate the 
hyper-sensitiveness of the Hindus in respect to intercourse 
with either Muslim or Christian. 

With the wider experience which is gained by residence 
in India, the European learns that the Hindus are them- 
selves divided into a multiplicity of well-recognised groups 
of families, the members of which may not marry persons 
outside their own group ; that little social intercourse takes 
place or is permitted between individuals belonging to 
these distinct groups which constitute the Hindu castes; 
and that amongst Indian Muslims also caste divisions in a 
modified form exist to some extent. It will not be long 
before the foreign resident learns that jat or zat and Jat-hhai, 
meaning caste and caste-mates respectively, are words for 
ever on the lips of the people ; that at the top of the caste 
scale stand the Brahmans who are the hereditary priest- 
hood, and below them a variety of castes with pretensions, 
customs, and sometimes occupations which differentiate one 
from the other. Theoretically there were originally only 
three superior castes, the Brahmans, Kshatriyas, and Vaisyas, 
and at the bottom of the social scale one great servile caste 
known as Sudras. Though these names, except in the case 
of the Brahmans, have lost their old significance, they are 
still frequently used and have to be borne in mind. 

According to the census of India, taken in 1901, the 
Hindu population excluding the Sikhs numbered 207,147,026 
souls, while the tables appended to the Eeport include 
no less than 2378 main castes and tribes and 43 races or 
nationalities. 

Under the caste system, as it prevails amongst the 
Hindus, the social and religious life of the members of each 
caste is governed by rules peculiar to itself, but precise in 
their requirements, while all infringements of such rules 

35 



BRAHMANS, THEISTS, AND MUSLIMS OF INDIA 

expose the delinquent to various penalties,including ostracism 
of divers degrees of stringency. 

Some of the rules are extremely inconvenient in their 
operation, especially such as require the higher castes to 
avoid the touch of men of inferior caste-status, and some- 
times lead to situations which border on the ludicrous. 
For example, one might notice a customer standing respect- 
fully outside a draper's shop in the bazaar, desirous of 
buying a bit of cloth. After the usual chaffering, he 
deposits the price on the edge of the boarded floor which 
projects on the street at about two feet above the ground, 
and having done this, stands patiently outside the shop 
while the draper measures out the quantity paid for. 
Presently the required number of yards of the selected 
material are thrown unceremoniously towards the pur- 
chaser, who makes a low obeisance and retires. This 
is a case of business conducted between a low-caste man 
and one several degrees above him in the caste scale; 
the latter being painfully anxious to avoid the slightest 
contact with the low-caste fellow, because it would entail 
ceremonial defilement requiring at the very least religious 
ablution before any food could be eaten by the person thus 
contaminated. 

A close scrutiny of the two men, draper and customer, 
would probably make it clear that their racial characteristics 
were by no means identical; that the man who claimed 
superiority had finer features, and perhaps a somewhat 
lighter complexion, suggesting that ethnic differences had, 
very likely, something to do with caste distinctions. 

As examples more or less typical of the working of the 
Hindu caste system, as seen by the outsider, I may here 
narrate the following incidents. 

In a notebook of mine, now many years old, I find 
recorded an event which occurred during a visit I paid to 
the town of Coconada, near the mouth of the Godavery 
River. A serious disturbance had taken place there because 
some wealthy natives of the caste of fishermen had presumed 
to ride in palanquins, a privilege from which they were 
debarred by immemorial custom. While discussing this 
riot and the peculiar ideas underlying it, a European official 

36 



CASTE IN INDIA 

who knew that part of the country well, assured me that 
pariahs had often to stand for hours at a ferry before they 
could get the opportunity of crossing, since one of these 
inferior beings dare not enter the same boat with a 
Brahman ; and he supported his statement by the following 
anecdote : — 

Watching the passengers disembark from a ferry-boat, 
my friend observed a Brahman run in an excited manner 
up to a woman who, shrinking timidly from observation, 
was evidently trying to conceal herself behind the throng 
of people who had just left the boat. Off went the 
Brahman's slipper as he reached the woman, and he struck 
her repeatedly with it; nor was it till the European had 
interfered personally, and forcibly, that he desisted from 
this unmanly assault. The victim of the attack was a 
pariah woman, who had presumed to enter the same boat 
with a man of the sacerdotal caste. That was the serious 
crime for which she received public chastisement, with the 
approval, no doubt, of all Hindu onlookers. 

Temporary contamination from the mere touch of a 
European may be experienced by a high-caste Brahman, 
although such tainture may under existing political con- 
ditions be lightly faced for personal ends. Professor Sir 
Monier Williams recording his experiences of travel in 
India says : " I may mention, in illustration, that I often 
wondered, when in India, why certain great Pandits pro- 
posed calling on me very early in the morning, till I found 
out accidentally that by coming before bathing they were 
able afterwards to purify themselves by religious ablutions 
from the contamination incurred in shaking hands and 
talking with me." ^ 

On this point a Bengali Brahman writes : " The orthodox 
Hindu's prejudices are such, that after sitting on the same 
carpet with a Mahomedan or a Christian friend, or shaking 
hands with such a person, he has to put off his clothes, and 
to bathe, or sprinkle his person with the holy water of the 
Gauges." ^ 

One feature of the Hindu caste system which early 

1 Modern India (1878), p. 182. 

^ Dr. J. N. Bhattachaijee Hindu Casks and. Sects, p. 121. 

37 



BRAkMANS, THEISTS, AND MUSLIMS OF INDIA 

attracts the attention of the European in India, is the 
hereditary character of many handicrafts and occupations, 
and much too hastily it is often concluded that all black- 
smiths, for example, are of the same caste, that all 
potters are of the same caste, and so on. But that this 
is very far from the truth cannot be too emphatically 
affirmed. All who follow a particular industrial calling do 
not necessarily belong to the same caste. However, it is 
true that a common occupation or trade is not infrequently 
the most evident bond of union in a local Hindu caste or 
sub-caste, and that the status in the caste scale of such an 
occupational group is largely dependent upon the nature of 
its calling, that is whether highly skilled or not, whether 
clean or otherwise. 

Voyaging along the eastern coast of the Indian Penin- 
sula in 1863, I noticed a considerable number of natives 
embarking in a ship lying in the roadstead off Coconada. 
They were mostly of the hereditary weaver caste, emigrating 
to the West Indies. I ascertained that these men had been 
thrown out of employment because all the cotton in their 
own country was being bought up at high prices and 
exported to feed the Lancashire power-looms, which had 
been deprived by the prolonged civil war in the United 
States of their usual supply of the raw material. 

It was to me a very interesting fact that a conflict in 
distant North America should drive Indian weavers to find 
employment beyond the sea, and occasion their emigration 
to the Western world itself, where the cause of their trouble 
lay. 

All the comments about this emigration which I heard 
at the time pointed to the irrationality of the narrow caste 
system, which alone seemed to be held responsible for the 
abandonment of their own country by the Indian weavers. 
But it did not strike me then, any more than it does now, 
that a body of men deprived by an accident or a calamity 
of their usual employment, whether a hereditary one or 
not, can quite easily take up some other vocation near home. 
Were this the case we should not at any time hear of labour 
troubles, distress, or increase of pauperism in Western 
countries, or of emigration from those favoured lands. 

38 



CASTE IN INDIA 

Amongst Hindus commensalism is confined to the 
members of the same or closely allied castes, and this hard- 
and-fast rule restricting commensation has given rise to 
many others affecting the preparation, handling, and con- 
sumption of food. For example : A Hindu's meals must 
as a rule be prepared by one of his own caste or by a 
Brahman, while his cooked food, and water for his drinking 
or his culinary purposes, if touched by a man of an inferior 
caste, become unfit for consumption. Fortunately for all 
concerned, water in bulk, as in rivers and tanks, does not 
get contaminated by the contact of the inferior castes. 

The regulations about receiving food and water from the 
hands of persons of alien castes are not precisely the same 
everywhere ; in fact they are peculiar to each endogamous 
group. They seem complicated if we take them in the 
aggregate, but they are simple enough when considered 
with reference to any one particular caste. In the case of 
persons who live such a simple life as the Hindus do, the 
regulations in question may ordinarily be observed without 
inconvenience. But when they are disregarded, trouble 
ensues. 

About ten or twelve years ago it came to my knowledge 
that intense excitement prevailed amongst the Kashmiri 
Brahmans, usually called Pandits, scattered over Northern 
India from Lucknow to Lahore, and had extended to their 
homeland, the Happy Valley itself. The trouble was due 
to the infringement of certain caste regulations, and had 
separated the whole community into opposing camps. One 
Vishnu Pant, a Kashmiri Pandit, had visited England, and 
by so doing had become unclean, and had consequently been 
cut off from communion with his own people. On his return 
to Lucknow, however, he made amends for his serious breach 
of caste requirements by the prescribed purificatory ceremony, 
and was thereupon admitted by certain of his caste mates 
into communion with themselves, that is to say, they ate 
and drank with him. But it was held by competent persons 
that the lustration had not been performed in the proper 
manner, irregularly perhaps, or too hastily, I cannot say ; 
and those Pandits who had broken bread with the sinner 
were at once outcasted, and not only they but also all others 

39 



BRAHMANS, THEISTS, AND MUSLIMS OF INDIA 

who had at any time after this event eaten with them. The 
contamination spread like the "French disease" in the 
Middle Ages, and the whole community of Pandits was con- 
vulsed with alarm and horror. Families got cut off from 
one another, and even in the same household the fission was 
so pronounced that the father perhaps would not receive 
food from his own son's hand. 

The purohits (family priests), fearing to be involved in 
the general social dShdcle, made it a rule not to receive food 
from either the Vishnu Pantis, or from their opponents the 
orthodox party. This resolution was, of course, adopted in 
order that they might be able to keep in with both parties. 
I am not aware whether the embers of the fire kindled years 
ago have now grown cold ; but this I know, that Kashmiri 
Pandits have visited England since the great split in their 
community, and by so doing have probably added to the 
former social confusion, and aggravated the domestic troubles 
in no small degree. 

It would be by no means surprising if these dissensions 
gave rise to new sub-castes as has occurred in many similar 
cases of differences within a caste. 

No doubt it is not too flattering to Western conceit to 
find that by intercourse with Europeans of whatever rank 
in life, the high-caste Hindu becomes impure, at least for a 
time. Speaking on this point, an urbane Brahman, probably 
more polite than truthful, once said to me, that members 
of his caste looking upon Europeans as a superior race, as 
indeed one of the same rank as themselves, would not have 
objected to admit them to their own privileges had the 
Europeans not contaminated themselves by eating beef, by 
the employment of cooks of all castes, and by allowing 
themselves to be touched by men and women of even the 
lowest castes. 

The exigencies of political conditions, and the dictates of 
self-interest tend, as time goes by, to make the offence of 
social intercourse with Europeans less heinous in the eyes 
of the Hindus than formerly, and the lapse from a state of 
purity caused thereby is, at any rate amongst the higher 
classes, readily condoned now. The purificatory ceremonies 
necessary in such cases for the complete rehabilitation of a 

40 



CASTE IN INDIA 

man of rank would seem to be of a rather perfunctory char- 
acter, if we may judge from the following casual entry by 
the Maharajah of Bobbili in his diary after his visit to 
Europe in 1902 :— 

" At Bezwada I had to wait the whole day till 9.30 p.m. 
for the mail train from Madras. As I had to stay so long 
there I had previously summoned the necessary Brahmans 
from Bobbili to meet me there to perform the usual 
Prayaschittam ceremony, simply to satisfy my friends and 
relations as I did after my previous tour." ^ 

I am not unaware, indeed I have personal knowledge of 
the fact, that there are many educated Hindus who deliber- 
ately, though secretly, break through the rules of caste when 
it suits them to do so, and that many apparently orthodox 
Babus enjoy, in convenient European hotels in Calcutta and 
elsewhere, a hearty meal of forbidden food, cooked and served 
up by Muhammadans. There is nothing surprising in this. 
European education and influence has to an appreciable 
extent undermined respect for such caste rules as interfere 
with social intercourse between the ruling and subject races. 

The advanced Babu, especially if he belong to a low 
caste, is rather proud of his emancipation from old-world 
restrictions, and likes to think that if he cannot eat with 
the Brahman, he can do so with the Sahibs who rule India. 
Besides, Hindu culinary preparations are not too tasty, and 
cannot be compared with Muslim or European dishes. 
However, the time for open revolt has not yet come, and 
only covert infringements of time-honoured customs can be 
safely attempted even by those whom the Native Press love 
to refer to as " men of light and leading." That in earlier 
times, too, a Hindu, or even a Brahman hon-vivant, was by 
no means averse to dine with non-Hindus if he could do 
so without prejudice to himself, may be illustrated by the 
following quaint story taken from The Dabistan : — 

" Azadah (this was his adopted title) is a Brahman. 
One day he ate at table with some Muselmans and 
drank wine. They said to him : ' Thou art a Hindu, 
and thou takest thy meal in common with Muselmans ? 

^ The Maharajah of Bobbili, Diary in Europe, 1902, p. 101. (Madras : 
printed at the Addison Press, 1903.) 

41 



BRAHMANS, THEISTS, AND MUSLIMS OF INDIA 

Your people never eat but with persons of their own 
religion.' Azadah replied : ' I did not suppose that you 
were Muselmans; hereafter I will at eating and 
drinking keep myself separate from you.' Another 
day he found himself again drinking wine in company 
with them, and did not turn his head from the meal ; 
during the repast they said to Azadah : ' Yesterday we 
made ourselves known to thee as Muselmans.' He 
answered : ' I knew that you were joking with me. 
God forbid that you should be Muselmans.'"^ 

How the origin of a new sub-caste may be accounted for 
by those interested in putting as favourable a construction 
upon the matter as possible, is instructively illustrated by 
the story of the origin of the well-known Pirali Brahmans 
of Bengal. According to the traditions of the family, it 
would appear that during the period of Muhammadan rule 
in Bengal, certain Brahmans had been invited to the house 
of a Muslim official named Pir Ali, and while there became 
polluted by unavoidably smelling forhidden food. These now 
degraded Brahmans were henceforth known as Piralis, and 
their descendants, although often in possession of great wealth 
and influence, have somehow never been able to recover the 
original caste status of the family.^ I should add that 
although the legend I have referred to may be acceptable 
to the Piralis themselves, and may satisfy a credulous 
public, it is, as Dr. Bhattacharjee has pointed out, by no 
means deserving of credence, as even the voluntary eating 
of forbidden food is not, according to the Shastras, an 
inexpiable offence.^ 

As we have seen, the caste regulations for the avoidance 
of personal contact with inferiors and non-Hindus, as well 
as the rules limiting the families and persons with whom it 
is lawful to partake of food, or from w^hom it may be 
received, are strict enough. Yet the preservation of caste 
and the caste system depends more upon the strict ob- 
servance of certain prescribed nuptial laws than upon 
adherence to the rules regulating ordinary social inter- 
course with outsiders. Amongst Hindus the jus connuhii 

^ The Dahistan, translated by Shea and Troyer, vol. il. p. 114. 
" S. C. Bose, The Hindoos as they arc, pp. 171-174. 
^ Hindu Castes and Sects, p. 120. 
42 



CASTE IN INDIA 

of each caste is very rigid, and any breach of it is a most 
serious offence. Two rules which hold good generally 
throughout the caste system are that marriages may be 
contracted only between members of the same caste ; but 
that such alliances may not be made within one family, 
or, as M, Senart puts it : " La hi de la caste . . . est une loi 
(Vendogamie par rapport a la caste, cl'exogamie p)ar rapiport a 
lafamille. Dans ces termes vagucs, die est absolue."'^ 

The field of selection for a bride or a bridegroom being 
within the caste, or even sub-caste, it has been prudently 
left entirely to the parents to conclude the necessary 
nuptial contracts, while the parties primarily concerned 
are still mere children without any personal preferences. 
Marriage being imperative in the case of every Hindu, 
and the field of selection being restricted by the caste 
regulations, the choice of a bride or a bridegroom is often 
a real and pressing difficulty which has produced the 
marriage-broker, whose knowledge of the genealogy of 
Hindu families, their means, and their eligible unwedded 
offspring, is at the service of anxious parents whose 
interests are his own. 

But even under the most careful management and most 
comprehensive safeguards, irregularities will occur, and may 
lead to far-reaching consequences. In this connection, the 
following extract from an Indian newspaper ^ may be both 
interesting and informing : — 

"FissiPAROUS Hinduism. — Writing of the excom- 
munication of three hundred Bombay Bhattias who had 
married wives from among the Bhattias of Hardwar, 
the Indian Social Reformer says : ' The incident is 
interesting as an instance before our very eyes of 
how new sub-castes have been formed in such large 
numbers in India. It is absurd to speak of excom- 
municating three hundred families. What has happened 
is that a number of Bhattias with Bombay wives have 
refused to have social intercourse with a number of 
Bhattias with Hardwar spouses. It is not alleged 
that the Hardwar marriages are invalid according to 
the Hindu law, so that what the conservative Bhattias 

^ Les Castes clans I'Inde, p. 27. 

2 Pioneer Mail (Allahahad), 5th June 1903. 

43 



BRAHMANS, THEISTS, AND MUSLIMS OF INDIA 

resent is practically the loss of custom. The three 
hundred heroes of this matrimonial Thermopylse will, 
of course, form a new caste, which in the course of the 
next twenty years would trace its origin to immemorial 
antiquity.' " 

Amongst Hindus mixed marriages entail serious dis- 
advantages on the offspring of such unions. In the case 
of a Brahman woman stooping to marry a Sudra, her 
children become Chandalas, mere outcasts. This is, of 
course, consonant with universal practice; for in all 
countries men visit with the greatest social penalties the 
women of their own class who prefer to mate with men 
of inferior degree. In Hindu society, the Brahmans having 
been the lawmakers, did their utmost to keep their women 
to themselves. They did not restrict their own choice 
quite so stringently, permitting themselves originally one 
wife from each of the four primitive castes already referred 
to ; though this privilege is no longer admitted. 

How Europeans stand with respect to the Indian 
caste system and its marital privileges, will be apparent 
from the following extract from a paper conducted by 
Indians : — 

" The Hindu or Mahommedan father is not yet born 
who would consent to bestow his daughter upon even 
the son of an English peer, who, in spite of an uninter- 
rupted descent from Norman brigands, is only a mlechha 
or a haffir carrying pollution in his very touch." ^ 

Any one long resident in India may, occasionally, come 
upon a picturesque group of persons of the lower classes 
seriously discussing some question of seemingly great in- 
terest to themselves, and learn that it was a sort of caste 
tribunal assembled for the trial of one or more of the 
members for some breach of the prescribed or customary 
caste laws. The elders under the guidance of a president 
would take evidence, examine witnesses, hear what the 
accusers and accused had to say, and decide accordingly. 

' Rais and Rayyet, quoted in Civil and MilUary Gazette (Lahore), 26th 
September 1884. 

44 



CASTE IN INDIA 

The court might be assembled on the side of a quiet road 
under a few shady trees, or in the open maidan. As likely 
as not the case under consideration might be one touching 
the infidelity of a wife, and the culpability of her husband, 
for surely the man who cannot rule his own house deserves 
punishment. If found guilty, the sentence of the assembly 
{panchayat) of his caste-mates would probably be that the 
culprit be debarred from all social intercourse with his 
brethren, not to eat, drink, or smoke with them, until he 
shall have confessed his fault, promised to do better in 
future, humiliated himself before the elders, and presented 
them with certain gifts. When these conditions had been 
duly fulfilled, the delinquent would probably be required 
to provide a feast for his caste-mates, who, by partaking 
of such feast in his company, i.e. eating and drinking 
with him, would testify publicly that he was readmitted 
to the privileges of the community. Occasionally, though 
not so much amongst the lowest classes, charity to the 
Brahmans would not be forgotten. 

It is hardly necessary to add that in all cases, whether 
serious or trifling, the penalties imposed would be pro- 
portioned to the enormity of the offence committed, as 
measured by caste standards, and might range from a mere 
reprimand to final expulsion from the community. 

The system of panchayats which has flourished for ages 
has no doubt helped very considerably to keep alive an 
interest in the affairs of the hrddri (caste-brotherhood) on 
the part of every one of its members, and has thus aided in 
the perpetuation of caste as an institution of almost vital 
importance to the Hindus. That the system of panchayats 
must encourage espionage and intermeddling is obvious, 
but its value as a force for the maintenance of a better 
moral standard and for the strict observance of caste 
customs, is undeniable. Nor are the functions of the 
panchayat always those of a police : it is sometimes 
appealed to for advice or approval in cases of adoption 
and marriage contracts. 

Having stated most of the salient features of the 
caste system as they come under the observation of 
the European in India, I now sum up more specifically 

45 



BRAHMANS, THEISTS, AND MUSLIMS OF INDIA 

what constitutes a serious breach of caste rules, and 
what is involved in the penalty of absolute exclusion 
from caste. 

On both these points, I cannot do better than quote a 
learned Hindu writer, a Brahman by caste, and a specialist 
in regard to the subject in question. 

"Exclusion from caste," he says, " would result from any 
of the following acts : 

" 1. Embracing Christianity or Mahomedanism, 

" 2. Going to Europe or America. 

" 3. Marrying a widow. 

" 4. Publicly throwing away the sacred thread. 

" 5. Publicly eating Kachi food cooked by a Mahomedan, 
Christian, or low-caste Hindu. 

" 6. Publicly eating beef, pork, or fowl. 

" 7. Officiating as a priest in the house of a very low- 
class Sudra. 

" 8. By a female going away from home for an immoral 
purpose. 

" 9. By a widow becoming pregnant." 

" In the villages," adds the same writer, " the friendless 
and the poor people are sometimes excluded from caste for 
other offences, as, for instance, adultery, incest, eating 
forbidden food and drinking forbidden liquors. But when 
the offender is an influential personage, or is influentially 
connected, no one thinks of visiting him with such 
punishment." ^ 

The ceremony of expulsion from caste, as prescribed in 
the laws of Manu, is a solemn and imposing proceeding, meant 
to symbolise the living death of the outcast. According 
to the lawgiver, the condemned man's relatives and connec- 
tions should assemble on the evening of an " unlucky day " 
and offer, as if to his manes, a libation of water, a priest 
and the culprit's gui^u (spiritual guide) being present. 
As at a Hindu funeral, a pot of water should be solemnly 
broken, not, however, by the nearest of kin, but by a slave 
girl. After this act the assembly should disperse, each 
individual present at the ceremony being regarded as impure 
for one day. 

1 J. ]Sr. Bhattacharjee, M.A., D.L., Hindu Castes and Secis, p. 17. 
46 



CASTE IN INDIA 

Little imagination is needed to realise how painfully 
affecting and impressive such a rite would appear to the 
kith and kin of the man thus ostracised. 

The nature of the penalty of exclusion from caste is 
thus explained : 

" When a Hindu is excluded from caste — 

" 1. His friends, relatives, and fellow-townsmen refuse 

to partake of his hospitality. 
"2. He is not invited to entertainments in their 

houses. 
" 3. He cannot obtain brides or bridegrooms for his 

children. 
" 4. Even his own married daughters cannot visit him 
without running the risk of being excluded from 
caste. 
" 5. His priest, and even his barber and washerman, 

refuse to serve him. 
" 6. His fellow-castemen sever their connection with him 
so completely that they refuse to assist him even 
at the funeral of a member of his household. 
" 7. In some cases the man excluded from caste is 

debarred access to the public temples." ^ 
Where the rules are so explicit it follows, of course, 
that means are duly provided, as indeed we have already 
seen, by which the offender against caste rules may expiate 
his errors or misfortunes and so recover his caste-status. 
These means are the performance of prescribed religious 
rites, and purificatory ceremonies, the feasting of Brahmans 
and bestowing suitable presents on them, and last, but not 
least, banqueting the members of his own caste. 

Necessarily readmission to the privileges of caste under 
such conditions means the expenditure of money, often a 
very considerable amount of money, and makes it compara- 
tively easy only for the rich man to brave the risks of 
breaking caste rules. Of one well-known and not over- 
scrupulous Bengali millionaire it is related that, " when the 
subject of caste was discussed, he emphatically said that 

^According to the Smriiis, "Outcasted persons have no share in 
inheritance." (Dr. J. Wilson, Caste, vol. i. p. 403.) But this law is not 
recognised by the British Government. 

47 



BRAHMANS, THEISTS, AND MUSLIMS OF INDIA 

' caste was in his iron chest,' the meaning of which was 
that money has the power of restoring caste." ^ 

On the other hand, infringements of caste rules by the 
poor bring upon the delinquents terrible hardships, driving 
many men and women to crime and even to suicide. 

Amongst the minor penances prescribed for breaches 
of caste rules, the following (taken from Dr. AVilson's Caste 
in India) may be mentioned as examples : — 

The Sdntapana — Fasting for a night and a day and 
swallowing the panchagavya, the five products of the cow — 
milk, butter, curd, etc. 

The Piajapatya — Fasting for three days, eating for 
three days ; abstaining from asking anything for three 
days, and fasting for three days. 

The Krichchhra — Abstaining from water for twenty-one 
days. 

The Faraka — Fasting for twelve days. 

The Tapta- Krichchhra — Drinking hot water, milk, and 
ghee for three days each. 

The Yavamadhya Chandrayana — Eating the first day 
of the moon one mouthful of food ; the second day, two ; 
the third, three ; and so on till full moon, when the supply 
is to be lessened by a mouthful daily till a new moon 
occurs. 

The Pipilika Chandrayana. In this the procedure pre- 
scribed in the last case is reversed. 

^ S. C. Bose, The Hindoos as they are, p. 177. 



48 




CASTE m mDlA— continued 

Section II. — The origin and development of the caste system as 
explained by the Pandits. 

CCOEDING to ancient Hindu Scriptures, 
there are but four varnas, colours or 
castes, ranged in descending scale as 
follows : — 

1. Brahmans — Priests and legislators. 

2. Kshatriyas — Eulers and warriors. 

3. Vaisyas — Merchants, herdsmen, and agriculturists. 

4. Sudras — Handicraftsmen, servitors, domestics, and 

the rest. 
In respect to the duties of these four castes, Manu, the 
famous Hindu lawgiver, says : 

"To Brahmans the Supreme Being assigned the 
duties of reading the Veda and teaching it, of 
sacrificing, of assisting others to sacrifice, of giving 
alms and of receiving gifts. To defend the people, 
to give alms, to sacrifice, to read the Veda, to shun 
the allurements of sexual gratification, are in a few 
words the duties of a Kshatriya. To keep herds 
of cattle, to bestow largesses, to sacrifice, to carry on 
trade, to lend at interest, are the duties of a Vaisya. 
One principal duty the Supreme Being assigns to a 
Sudra, namely, to serve the before-mentioned classes 
without depreciating their worth." ^ 

The three first of the above-named castes, embracing 
the priests, warriors, merchants and agriculturists, were at 
some subsequent period designated dvij'a, " twice-born," and 
were entitled to wear a sacred thread across the breast and 
over one shoulder as a badge of their nobility. They also 

'* Mann, i. 87-91. 
D 49 



BRAHMANS, THEISTS, AND MUSLIMS OF INt>lA 

enjoyed the exclusive privilege of studying the holy Vedas, 
the Sudras being permitted neither to open a page of the 
sacred book, nor even to listen to the reading thereof. 
All strong priesthoods have, for very good reasons, been 
averse to admit the masses to a knowledge of their sacred 
books, and the Brahmans in shutting out the Sudras from 
all knowledge of the Vedas, only followed the usual safe 
course dictated by worldly wisdom. 

Even after death the great distinctions of caste are to 
be maintained. The virtuous Brahman goes to the abode 
of Brahma ; the good Kshatriya to that of Indra, and the 
worthy Vaisya to that of the Maruts, and the dutiful Sudra 
to that of the Gandharvas.^ 

To give the imprimatur of divine sanction to this 
convenient arrangement, a myth duly found its way into 
the sacred Veda to the effect that in the beginning the 
Brahmans proceeded from the mouth of the Creator, the 
Kshatriyas from his arms, the Vaisyas from his thighs, and 
the Sudras or servile class from his feet.^ 

Dissimilar and contradictory accounts of the origin of 
the four castes are to be found in other later sacred books 
of the Hindus, but they do not appear to have troubled the 
placid minds of the Indians, and we need not concern our- 
selves with them here.^ 

It has obviously been to the interest of the superior 
castes, particularly the hereditary priesthood, to strenuously 
and persistently uphold the integrity of the system just 
outlined ; but, even so, no one could possibly anticipate the 
insolent arrogance with which the Brahmans have asserted 
their own unapproachable superiority and their right to 

^ The Markandaya Puraiia, cited by Dr. John Wilson, Indian Caste, 
vol. i. p. 437. 

^ The Parusha sukta, being the 90th hymn of the 10th book of the 
Rig Veda. "This celebrated hymn," says Dr. Muir, "contains, as far as 
we know, the oldest extant passage which makes mention of the fourfold 
origin of the Hindu race." — Original Sanskrit Texts, vol. i. p. 7. 

Writing of this hymn Professor Max Miiller said : "There can be little 
doubt, for instance, that the 90th hymn of the 10th book ... is 
modern both in its character and diction." — Quoted by Muir, Original 
Sanskrit Texts, vol. i. p. 13. 

2 Muir, Original Sanskrit Texts, vol. i. pp. 138-110, 159, 160, and 
220, 221. 

50 



CASTE IN INDIA 

regulate the affairs of men, for it is surely without parallel 
in human history, as the following passages from Hindu 
Scriptures will show : — 

" The son of Ita then inquired : Tell me, Vayu, to 
whom the earth, with its wealth, rightfully belongs, to 
the Brahman or the Kshatriya ? Vayu replied : All 
this, whatever exists in the world, is the Brahman's 
property by right of primogeniture : this is known to 
those who are skilled in the laws of duty. It is his 
own which the Brahman eats, puts on, bestows. He 
is the chief of all the castes, the first-born and the 
most excellent. Just as the woman when she has lost 
her (first) husband, takes her brother-in-law for a 
second: so the Brahman is the first resource in 
calamity ; afterwards another may arise " (Mahabharata, 
Santiparvam, verses 2755 ct seq.). 

" No blame accrues to Brahmans from teaching 
or sacrificing or from receiving money in any other 
way ; Brahmans are like flaming fire. Whether ill or 
well versed in the Veda, whether untrained or ac- 
complished, Brahmans must never be despised, like 
fires covered with ashes. Just as a fire does not lose 
its purity by blazing even in a cemetery, so too, 
whether learned or unlearned, a Brahman is a great 
deity. Cities are not rendered magnificent by ramparts, 
gates, or palaces of various kinds if they are destitute 
of excellent Brahmans. The place where Brahmans, 
rich in the Veda, perfect in their conduct, and austerely 
fervid, reside, is (really) a city {nagara). Wherever 
there are men abounding in Vedic lore, whether it be a 
cattle-pen or a forest, that is called a city, and that will 
be a sacred locality" (Vanaparvam, 13436 to 13540). 

" Through the prowess of the Brahmans the Asuras 
were prostrated on the waters; by the favour of the 
Brahmans the gods inhabit heaven. The ether cannot 
be created ; the mountain Hamavat cannot be shaken, 
the Ganga cannot be stemmed by a dam ; the Brahmans 
cannot be conquered by anyone upon earth. The world 
cannot be ruled in opposition to the Brahmans ; for the 
mighty Brahmans are the deities even of the gods. If 
thou desire to possess the sea-girt earth, honour them 
continually with gifts and with service." ^ 

In the Kriya- Yoga-Sara of the Padma Purana it 

^ Muir, Saml<rit Texts, vol. i. pp. 129, 130. 

51 



BRAHMANS, THEISTS, AND MUSLIMS OF INDIA 

is said : " Whatever good man bows to a Braliiiian, wor- 
shipping him as Vishnu, is blessed with long life, sons, 
fame and wealth. . . . The bearer of a drop of water which 
has been in contact with a Brahman's foot has all the 
sins of his body thereby destroyed. Whoever carries on 
his head the holy things touched by a Brahman's foot, 
verily, verily I say, he is freed from all sins."^ 

As a result of these extravagant pretensions we find the 
Brahmanical law recommending liberality to the Brahmans 
as the highest of virtues, and at the same time conferring 
upon that favoured caste remarkable rights and privileges, 
as compared with the inferior castes. For criminal offences 
a graduated scale of punishments is laid down by which the 
Brahman is let off with the least penalties, the Kshatriya 
fares better than the Vaisya and the Vaisya than the Sudra. 

Under no circumstances whatever may a king order the 
execution of a Brahman.^ 

The immeasurable inferiority of the Sudras is illustrated 
by the law which prescribes that a man of the twice-born 
castes having intercourse with a Sudra woman is to be 
banished ; a Sudra having connection with a woman of the 
superior castes is to be put to death. 

It is needless to add that these ordinances are now as 
inoperative in India as are the Levitical laws in Christendom ; 
yet the study of them is instructive as throwing light upon 
the past. But it may be well to realise in connection with 
these obsolete Hindu laws that class or caste privileges have 
been common enough in Europe, and that the feelings which 
dictated the sanguinary law against a Sudra cohabiting with 
an Arya woman finds practical expression even now in the 
cruel lynching of negroes for offences against white women 
in the great American Eepublic, where all are equal and 
where all are free ! 

From such facts and legends regarding the origin and 
working of the institution of caste as are revealed some- 

^ Dr. John Wilson, Indian Caste, vol. i. p. 426. 

2 This recalls to mind the old English law according to which priests, 
deacons, and clerks condemned to death could be claimed by the bishop 
of the diocese, and so escape punishment. — John Brady, Clavis Calendaria, 
vol. i. p. 363. 

52 



CASTE IN INDIA 

times deliberately, sometimes quite casually in the literature 
of the Brahmans from the ancient Vedas, through the 
Brahmanas, Upanishads, and Sutras to the famous Indian 
Epics — the Eamayana and Mahabharata — may be learned 
how insidiously the Brahmans magnified their own 
importance and privileges, and how their arrogant self- 
assertion often brought them into serious conflict with the 
Kshatriyas, who, if we are to believe the priests, were 
entirely extirpated by Parasharama because of their opposi- 
tion to the Brahmans. The legend to this effect is accepted 
by many living Pandits, who maintain that no lineal de- 
scendants of the original Kshatriya caste are existing at the 
present day. It is admitted, however, in the Mahabharata, 
that the Kshatriya race in a renewed form resulted from 
intercourse between Brahmans and Kshatriya women who 
were evidently not exterminated along with their men- 
folk. 

That the four original castes, if ever there were such, 
have not been, and indeed could not have been, kept pure, 
has been recognised by the Hindus from the remotest 
antiquity,^ and the literature of the past, especially the 
Epics, present us with pictures of life in the heroic age 
when the functions of the primitive castes seem already 
strangely confused, Brahmans, Vaisyas, and even Sudras 
being amongst the most distinguished military leaders 
in the fratricidal war which came to an end on the 
bloody battlefield of Kurakshatra. Nor is the idea of 
the exercise of even kingly power by a Sudra unknown 
to the law - books.^ Changes of occupation amongst 
Hindus are also casually recorded in the old Buddhist 
literature.^ 

It is also admitted that the priestly class became sub- 
divided into several sub-castes according to their supposed 
respective patriarchs (gotras), and that another cause of 
fission was the adoption by distinct families of the duty of 
collecting, arranging, and transmitting the various parts 

1 Muir, Sanskrit Texts, vol. i. pp. 135-137 and 281-283. 
" M. Emile Senart, Les Castes dans VInde, pp. 118, 119. 
^ The Jatakas, cited by Professor T. W. Rhys Davids, BtiddMst India, 
pp. 56, 57. 

53 



BRAHMANS, THEISTS, AND MUSLIMS OF INDIA 

(known as shdkds or branches ^) of the Veclas ; and of 
conducting the different ceremonials, particularly sacrifices 
connected with their ancient Scriptures. 

According to the orthodox view, a great many well- 
established castes owe their origin to regular or irregular 
alliances between members of the four primitive castes, and 
between the descendants of such unions. A table of the 
parentage of one hundred and thirty-one such mixed and 
degraded castes are given by the Rev. Dr. John Wilson in 
his book on Indian Caste.^ 

Hindus further believe that irregularities and confusion 
have resulted in some cases from men of a lower caste 
pretending to belong to a superior one ; e.g., Kshatriyas and 
Vaisyas having set up claims to Brahmanhood, and 
obtained a more or less doubtful footing in the great 
sacerdotal caste. But after the above-mentioned mythical 
and other causes assigned in explanation of the origination 
of the primitive or of new castes have been allowed for, 
there remain many features of the existing system which 
require elucidation, and will repay investigation, 

^ " A shdJcd (branch), it must be renieniberecl, is a definite literary Vedic 
treasure as held in the memory of its possessors and taught by repetition 
to others." — Dr. John Wilson, Indian Caste, vol. ii. p. 13. 

2 Vol. i. pp. 65-70. 



S4 



CASTE IN mBlA— continued 

Section III. — The existing Hindu caste system contrasted with the 
theoretical system of the old books. 

CASTE, as we have seen, is mentioned in some of 
the oldest Hindu Scriptures ; but in view of the 
unreliability of Indian texts and the uncertain- 
ties of Indian chronology, it may be worth 
stating that the Greeks noticed the existence 
of the caste system in India, and that Megas- 
thenes, Greek ambassador at the court of the Hindu King 
Sandracottus (B.C. 306-298), enumerates seven Hindu castes 
as follows : ^ — 

1. Philosophers. 

2. Husbandmen. 

3. Shepherds and Hunters. 

4. Labourers, or those who work at trades, or vend wares. 

5. Fighting-men. 

6. Inspectors charged with the supervision of all that 

goes on. 

7. Counsellors and Assessors of the King. 

At the present day instead of the four castes of the 
Hindu Scriptures, or the seven referred to by Megasthenes, 
we have something very different, for no less than " 2378 
main castes and tribes and 43 races or nationalities" 
are included in the tables appended to the Eeport on 
the last Census of India, Everywhere, throughout the 
country, we find at the top of the social scale the Brahman s 
as of yore ; but no longer of pure Aryan race, and some- 
times far more akin to the Dra vidian or Mongolian than the 
Aryan stock from which they claim descent. Further, we 

' Dr. J. W. M'Crindle, Ancient India, pp. 47-53. 

55 



BRAHMANS, THEISTS, AND MUSLIMS OF INDIA 

find the Brahmans represented by a variety of sub-castes 
between which intermarriage is not allowed. Below the 
Brahmans we find a medley of castes wearing the cord 
which is the special and distinguishing badge of the twice- 
born, thereby claiming to be, and popularly accepted as, the 
modern representatives of the traditional Kshatriya and 
Vaisya castes. 

" The ancient designation Sudra," writes Mr. 
Eisley, " finds no great favour in modern times, 
and we can point to no group that is generally 
recognised as representing it. The term is used 
in Bombay, Madras, and Bengal to denote a con- 
siderable number of castes of moderate respectability, 
the higher of whom are considered 'clean' Sudras, 
while the precise status of the lower is a question 
which lends itself to endless controversy. At this 
stage of the grouping a sharp distinction may be 
noticed between Upper India and Bombay and Madras. 
In Eajputana, the Punjab, the United Provinces, the 
Central Provinces, Bengal and Assam, the grade next 
below twice-born rank is occupied by a number of 
castes from whose hands Brahmans and members of 
the higher castes will take water and certain kinds 
of sweetmeats. Below these again is a rather inde- 
terminate group from whom water is taken by some of 
the higher castes, but not by others. Further down 
where the test of water no longer applies, the status of 
a caste depends on the nature of its occupation and its 
habits in respect to diet. There are castes whose 
touch defiles the twice-born, but who do not commit 
the crowning enormity of eating beef; while below 
these again in the social system of Upper India are 
people like Chamars and Doms who eat beef and 
various sorts of miscellaneous vermin. In Western 
and Southern India the idea that the social status of a 
caste depends on whether Brahmans will take water and 
sweetmeats from its members is unknown, for the 
higher castes will as a rule take water only from 
persons of their own caste and sub-caste. In Madras 
especially the idea of ceremonial pollution by the 
proximity of a member of an unclean caste has been 
developed with much elaboration. Thus the table of 
social precedence attached to the Cochin Eeport shows 
that while a Nayar can pollute a man of a higher caste 
56 



CASTE IN INDIA 

only by touching him, people of Kammalan group, 
including masons, blacksmiths, carpenters, and workers 
in leather, pollute at a distance of 24 feet, toddy- 
drawers (Iluvan or Tiyan) at 36 feet, Pulayan or 
Cheruman cultivators at 48 feet, while in the case of 
the Paraiyan (Pariahs) who eat beef, the range of 
pollution is stated to be no less than 64 feet." ^ 

A large number of castes devoted to or connected with 
special occupations are to be found all over India, and have 
attracted considerable attention from Europeans, so much 
so that it has even been held that " function and function 
only was the foundation upon which the whole caste system 
of India was built up,"^ a view which conflicts with the 
irrefragable fact that of no occupational or trade caste can 
it be said that even within a restricted area its members 
enjoy the privilege of marrying into all the other groups 
devoted to the same pursuit, carried on in exactly the same 
way.^ 

Changes in the component parts of the vast caste system 
have been, and continue to be, far more common and natural 
than is generally supposed. Disintegration and reconstruc- 
tion have been going on perpetually. Under the pressure 
of circumstances and new conditions, the number of social 
groups is always changing, and their boundaries are ever 
shifting. The castes of to-day are not necessarily identical 
with those of the past, even the comparatively recent past. 
No doubt from the earliest times, the division of the Indian 
population into caste groups has been a noticeable feature 
of Hindu society, and it is so to-day ; but there have been 
endless changes in the component parts of the system 
which is not and never has been more permanent than 
other human institutions. Yet the idea of caste, respect for 
the institution and its recognition as an indispensable feature 
of Indian society, has been strong and persistent amongst 
Hindus from remote antiquity up to the present day ; and 
so has the broad principle that the internal affairs of each 

^ Census of India Report, 1901, p. 540. 

^ John C. Nesfield, M.A., Brief View of Caste System of the North- Western 
Provinces and Oude, p. 38 (Allahabad, 1885). 
^ Census of India Report, 1901, p. 553. 

57 



BRAHMANS, THEISTS, AND iMUSLIMS OF INDIA 

caste should be regulated by its own customary law, which 
even the king should uphold.^ Revolts there have been 
from time to time, and in another book ^ I have pointed out 
that the principle of caste has often been called in question 
in India, and that, as a rule, the Hindu founders of new 
religious sects have manifested a decided hostility to the 
system by admitting men and women of all castes indis- 
criminately into these communities on a footing of equality ; 
but that the practical result of such latitudinarianism has, 
in the long-run, been merely the creation of new castes, and 
not the abrogation of the system. 

My plan being to deal merely with the more prominent 
characteristics of a very complex system, I am precluded 
from entering into details about the different castes, 
their organisation, customs, and peculiarities. But since 
a general survey of the Hindu caste system of to-day 
reveals the fact that on the whole the Brahmans are still, 
as formerly, the venerated spiritual and social leaders of 
the people in most parts of India, certain features of their 
present constitution may well arrest our attention for a 
it)ii^«ft^nt. 

J As previously stated, the Brahmans do not now form a 
sTngTe monogamous caste, if ever they did so. Nor do they 
now pursue a single calling, many groups or sub-castes 
being devoted to various secular occupations. 

Some Brahman sub-castes have arisen owing to particular 
families devoting themselves, as spiritual advisers (gums), 
to special sections of the lay community. Thus there are 
several such sub-castes amongst the Gujarati Brahmans, e.g. 
the Kunhigors who act as gurus to the agriculturists, the 
Mochigors who look.,^after the spiritual welfare of the shoe- 
makers, and so on\^ 

Brahmans havebeen, and are still, employed in all State 
departments ; they are throughout the country engaged in 
the administration or practice of the law and in mercantile 
and other secular pursuits. Brahmans serve as Sepoys in 
the Indian Army, and some have fought against us like the 

' M. Emile Senart, Lcs Cades dans VInde, p. 117. 
- The Mystics, Ascetics, and Saints of India. 
^ Dr. J. Wilson, Indian Caste, vol. ii. p. 93. 

58 



CASTE IN INDIA 

famous Tantia Topi and the still more famous Eani of 
Jhansi, whose names are indelibly associated with the great 
Sepoy revolt of 1857-58. 

Many Brahman tribes till the soil with thenr own hands, 
as, for example, the Gaur Brahmans of Delhi, Eohtak, 
Gurgaon, and Karnal. Others live by trading, and great 
numbers are cooks even in Sudra households. 

In Bengal there is a caste of Brahmans — known as 
Kulins, already referred to on page 28 — many members of 
which seem to have little business in life beyond marrying 
and marrying, and marrying again, an unlimited number of 
times, and without reference to age, till they have in some 
cases been known to possess as many as 350 wives. They 
receive a substantial pecuniary consideration with each 
wife, without incurring the obligation of supporting her. 
I have myself heard one of these Kulin Brahmans say that 
he was going to marry another wife, and ascertained that 
he contemplated this step because he lacked money where- 
with to complete a house he was building for himself. It 
is fair to add that some Kulin Brahmans do not exercise 
their polygamous privileges, and find other and more 
honourable modes of earning a living, supporting themselves, 
and building their dwelling-houses. 

At least one Brahman caste is looked upon as positively 
disreputable. They are known as Bura Brahmans (evil 
Brahmans), and are a terror to the people, claiming as a 
right the clothing, bedding, and lotah (drinking vessel) of 
the dead. In such abhorrence are they held that to meet 
one of them in the morning is regarded as a very bad omen. 

The missionary Mr. W. Ward, writing about a century 
ago of the Bengali Brahmans of his time, says : " The 
Shastra expressly forbids their selling milk, iron, lac, salt, 
clarified butter, sesamum, etc., yet many Brahmans now 
deal in these things without regard to the Shastra, or the 
opinion of stricter Hindus, and add thereto the sale of 
skins, spirits, and flesh. ... I have heard of a Brahman at 
Calcutta who was accustomed to procure beef for the 
butchers ; many traffic in spirituous liquors." ^ 

' A View of the Hislory, LUcrature, and ridigion of the Hindus, vol. i. 
pp. 85, 86. 

59 



BRAHMANS, THEISTS, AND MUSLIMS OF INDIA 

With the diversity in their avocations, there is to be 
found a corresponding diversity in many of their customs, 
arising out of the nature of their occupations, e.g. Trigula 
Brahmans who are employed in the cultivation of the 
pepper-betel do not, we are told, hesitate to destroy insects, 
which other Brahmans would not do. 

In the matter of food the differences between the 
various Brahman castes is striking. The Javala and 
Shenavi Brahmans, for example, eat fish. Several castes 
amongst the Saraswata Brahmans eat both fish and flesh, 
the Sakhtas amongst them indulging in spirits also. The 
Gouda Brahmans of Central India also partake of animal 
food ; while the Nepalese Brahmans " eat goats, sheep, and 
some kinds of wild fowl, but abstain from venison." ^ 

Notwithstanding that some Brahmans, as just instanced, 
do eat animal food, we may take it as a general fact that 
abstention from heef is a requirement applicable to all 
Hindus in these days, though it was not so in the remote 
past. 

So much for the Brahmans. If we pursue a like 
inquiry with respect to the present-day occupations of 
the castes which claim to represent the traditional 
Kshatriyas, we shall find similar diversities, showing that 
the caste system of to-day, and its practical working, 
differs greatly from the ideal — it could never have been 
anything more — which the Hindu lawgiver desired to 
place under the sanction of Holy Writ. Yet caste is still 
the most distinctive feature in Indian life, each caste being 
a hereditary group of families, more often than not 
ethnologically related, bound together by common religious 
and social practices, and, in many cases, devoted to a 
distinctive trade or occupation. For every Hindu the 
customs of his caste determine the details of the social 
intercourse he may have within the group or with out- 
siders, and limits strictly and inexorably for each man 
or woman the possible field of matrimonial alliances. 
Tampering with caste rules is, in the case of the wealthy 

^ For the facts stated above regarding the avocations and food of various 
Brahman sub-castes, I am indebted to Dr. John Wilson, Indian Caste, vol. 
ii. pp. 26, 27, 30, 68, 134, 137, 163, and 198, 

6o 



CASTE IN INDIA 

and better educated, becoming more frequent perhaps 
than formerly, but still, for the country as a whole, caste 
retains its vitality, a fact which will not, however, surprise 
us if we clearly grasp the idea that the customs of each 
caste have been derived from witliin, not imposed from 
without, and that they preserve, though not unchanged, 
the religious conceptions and practices of a remote ancestry. 
With this key to its real inwardness, we can understand 
and appreciate the stability of the caste system through 
so many centuries, and the pride that each member of a 
caste takes to scrupulously maintain its boundaries intact, 
this being his primary duty as a religious, moral, reputable 
person. If a man respect not his caste he is worthy only 
of contempt and detestation. That he should be born 
in one caste instead of another, in one station of life 
instead of another, is due to his Karma (actions in previous 
existences), and therefore inevitable,^ and it is this belief 
which enables him cheerfully to do his duty " in that state 
of life unto which it shall please God to call him"; the 
Brahman hierarchy being thus more successful than the 
Christian priesthood in attaining an end which both have 
kept in view, and still desire to see accomplished. 

Note. — A word about Muslim castes may be added. 
The Muhammadans, as such, form a class apart, and 
as conquerors in India were strongly differentiated from 
tlie " infidels " ; but the idea of caste distinctions amongst 
Mussulmans themselves is alien to the spirit of Islam, yet, 
under certain circumstances, castes may and do arise amongst 
Muhammadans. The origination of a Muslim caste out of 
a heretical sect is evidenced by the case of the Nakhawilahs 
of Medina, regarding whom Sir E. Burton writes : 

"They are numerous and warlike, yet they are 
despised by the townspeople, because they openly 
profess heresy, and are moreover of humble degree. 
They have their own priests and instructors, although 
subject to the orthodox Kazi; marry in their own 
sect, are confined to low offices, such as slaughtering 

"^ "Fate," said the lawgiver Yajnavalkya, "is (the result of) a man's 
acts performed in a previous body." 

6i 



BRAHMANS, THEISTS, AND MUSLIMS OF INDIA 

animals, sweeping and gardening, and are not allowed 
to enter the Harim during life, or to be carried to it 
after death. Their corpses are taken down an outer 
street called the Darb al Janazah — Eoad of Biers — to 
their own cemetery near Al-Bakia." 

Burton adds in a footnote, that this sect believe "in 
a transmigration of the soul, which, gradually purified, is 
at last ' orbed ' into a perfect star ! They are scrupulous 
of caste, and will not allow a Jew or a Frank to touch a 
piece of their furniture. . . ."^ 

Amongst Indian Muhammadans there are, it appears, 
two main social divisions : the Ashraf or Sharaf, meaning 
noble, and the Ajlaf or Kamina, base or mean. " The 
former section," writes Mr. Gait, " is made up of all 
undoubted descendants of foreigners and converts from 
the higher castes of the Hindus." ^ The rest of the 
community falls into the second section. " In some places 
a third class, called Arzal or ' lowest of all,' is added. 
It consists of the very lowest castes, such as the Halalkhor, 
Lalbegi, Abdal, and Bediya, with whom no other Muhani- 
inadan would associate, and who are forbidden to enter 
the mosque or to use the public burial-ground." ^ 

Except in very exceptional circumstances, no member 
of the Ashraf class will give his daughter in marriage to 
a man of inferior grade. 

Indian converts to Muhammadanism and their de- 
scendants forming the lower section of the community 
have fallen quite naturally into endogamous groups, 
governed, as regards social life, after the manner of the 
regular Hindu castes. 

^ Pilgrimage to Al-Madinali and Mecca, vol. ii. p. 2. From their 
belief in metempsycliosis, the Nakhawilahs were probably of Indian origin. 
" 'The Census of India, 1901. Report, pp. 543, 544. 



62 



CASTE IN mTflA— continued 

Section IV. — Caste outside the Hindu system — A digressional study. 

Wy|"^ • T little amused wonder and supercilious 
V^^^J criticism on the part of Europeans has 
I ^^^ been aroused by the caste system of India, 
I 1* which has generally been regarded as an 

A A absurd, unhealthy, social phenomenon, with- 

^ ^ out parallel elsewhere. 

The system, it must be admitted, has very marked 
peculiarities of its own, but caste prejudices, and institutions 
based on such prejudices, are not wholly absent from social 
life outside India, even in highly civilised states of the 
Western World. And a little consideration of such indi- 
cations of caste feeling will help us to account in some 
measure for the more salient characteristics of the Indian 
system, or at any rate serve to clear our minds of certain 
unfounded prejudices and offensive cant. 

I am well aware that an attempt to establish any 
resemblance between the class distinctions which exist 
in Europe and the hereditary caste corporations of Hinduism, 
though it might be viewed with favour by educated Indians, 
would be scouted by the ordinary Englishman, who prides 
himself upon the homogeneity of his people, his free 
institutions, and his democratic ideals; and it must be 
admitted that heredity does not, at present, except in rare 
cases, form an indispensable feature of the classes into 
which European society is divided; but it is neverthe- 
less undeniable that, even in Europe, certain genuine 
hereditary caste distinctions have at various times been 
maintained by law, and are to be found there even at the 
present day. 

One much derided peculiarity of the Hindu caste system 

63 



BRAHMANS, THEISTS, AND MUSLIMS OP INDIA 

is the hereditary character of trades and occupations, and 
in this connection it is interesting to recall to mind that 
at certain epochs the law in Europe has compelled men 
to keep, generation after generation, to the calling of their 
fathers without the option of change. 

An instance in point is the organisation of the State 
under the laws laid down by the Emperor Diocletian and 
his successors. 

" This organisation established in the Eoman world 
a personal and hereditary fixity of professions and 
situations, which was not very far removed from the 
caste system of the East. . . . Members of the adminis- 
trative service were, in general, absolutely bound to 
their employments ; they could not choose their wives or 
marry their daughters outside of the collegia to which 
they respectively belonged, and they transmitted their 
obligations to their children. ... In municipalities the 
curiales, or members of the local senates, were bound, 
with special strictness, to their places and their functions, 
which often involved large personal expenditure. . . . 
Their families, too, were bound to remain ; they were 
attached by the law to the collegia or other bodies 
to which they belonged. The soldier, procured for 
the army by conscription, served as long as his age 
fitted him for his duties, and his sons were bound to 
similar service. 

" In a constitution of Constantine (a.d. 332) the 
colonus is recognised as permanently attached to 
the land. If he abandoned his holding, he was 
brought back and punished ; and anyone who received 
him had not only to restore him but to pay a penalty. 
He could not marry out of the domain ; if he took 
for wife a colona of another proprietor, she was restored 
to her original locality, and the offspring of the union 
were divided between the estates. The children of 
a colonus were fixed in the same status, and could not 
quit the property to which they belonged." ^ 

To the foregoing may be added that in England an 
ancient enactment required all men who at any time took 
up the calling of coal-mining or drysalting, to keep to that 

' J. K. Ingram, LL.D., History of Slavery and Serfdom, pp. 74-78. 

64 



CASTE IN INDIA 

occupation for life, and enjoined that their children should 
also follow the same employment. This law was only- 
repealed by statutes passed in the 15th and 39th years of 
the reign of George iii. ; that is in the lifetime of the 
fathers of many men who are with us to-day, 

A more striking European example of a compulsory 
hereditary calling, common enough in the Middle Ages and 
down to the last century in Russia, is that of the serfs 
bound to the soil from generation to generation. Then 
again there existed through long periods of European 
history, the institution of hereditary slavery, with all its 
abominations. 

In the social fabric of all countries are to be found 
certain classes which owing to various circumstances, 
political or other, are possessed of hereditary privileges, 
titles, and offices giving them precedence over the rest. 
These constitute the aristocracy, and at the bottom of the 
social scale in Europe, as elsewhere, are the luorkers. In 
India, for reasons explained later, it is the sacerdotal caste 
which is at present, and which has long been the hereditary 
Hindu aristocracy. 

Below the aristocracy and above the proletariat we 
everywhere find a medley of classes, yet tolerably well 
defined; each with its pretensions stoutly asserted and 
jealously guarded. Such, for example, are the divisions 
based upon landed proprietorship ; educational distinctions, 
as the learned professions lay and clerical; and those 
which are connected with mercantile affairs and trade 
pursuits. 

Between the different grades of the social scale there 
exists a matrimonial taboo, and a woman of any recognised 
class who "marries beneath her," marries a man lower 
down in the social scale, is rejected of the class in which 
she was born, and is regarded by her former friends with 
aversion and contempt far greater than they feel for any 
member of the class to which she has descended. 

Men who marry women of inferior social grade suffer in 

a similar way ; but by no means to the same degree as 

women who marry below the rank in which they were 

born. Yet it may be noted that amongst the very 

E 65 



BRAHMANS, THEISTS, AND MUSLIMS OF INDIA 

exclusive German ruling classes and higher aristocracy a 
mesalliance on the part of a prince or noble is visited with 
the gravest penalties, including social ostracism and de- 
privation of rights. Herein we have caste prejudice strongly 
displayed. 

Of the feelings which find erpression in the well- 
understood social laws just glanced at, pride of hlood is the 
most important, usually implying a claim to dominance at 
some time or other ; such claims being often of a somewhat 
shadowy nature, as where an English family pride them- 
selves upon the fact that a direct ancestor of theirs came 
over with William the Norman, the implication being that 
their ancestor was one of the conquerors of alien race from 
across the sea who subdued the native Anglo-Saxons in the 
eleventh century, and ruled over them. 

Amongst men of kindred races professing the same faith 
and practically of the same colour, caste distinctions though 
they may be set up after conquest by the dominant 
nationality cannot, except in the case of serfs or slaves, be 
long maintained, because the offspring of women of the 
subject race by men of the conquering tribes or nations are 
able, without attracting special attention, to assume the 
status and enjoy the privileges of their fathers. 

With the decline of the warlike spirit, the exaltation of 
commercialism, and the pronounced worship of wealth, a 
new source of pride has been introduced arising out of the 
power of exploiting others which the possession of money 
confers, though it must be admitted that this same com- 
mercialism has also tended to the discounting of heredi- 
tary class distinctions. Of the arrogance which is based 
upon the possession of a long purse no illustration is 
needed. 

Besides the social barriers arising out of birth, opulence, 
knowledge, or occupation, there are others due to religious 
differences which are serious, often insuperable, obstacles to 
intermarriage, and tend to disseverance. Here the priest- 
hood plays an important role. For the jealous maintenance 
of their own jurisdiction and power, but ostensibly for the 
protection of their flocks from deadly spiritual contamination 
by misbelievers, the priests of each religion or sect strenu- 

66 



CASTE IN INDIA 

ously interdict, and visit with social penalties, all marriages 
between members of their own Church or denomination and 
outsiders, even of the same religion. Where powerful 
enough to impose their will on the laws of the country, inter- 
marriages between members of divergent sects are made illegal. 
Hence, as is well known, unions between Eoman Catholics, 
the followers of the orthodox Greek Church, and Protestants, 
generally are discouraged, or even actively opposed by the 
priests, and are, on that account, not very frequent. Even 
amongst Protestant sects the tendency to endogamy is 
apparent ; for example, we have the Quakers, who since the 
formation of the sect about two hundred and fifty years 
ago, have intermarried mostly within the sect. 

However, as already noted, it is not in communities 
made up of races of the same colour that prejudices giving 
rise to social or caste distinctions are most in evidence. It 
is when the contrast in colour between rulers and ruled is 
accentuated that such prejudices are rampant. Good con- 
temporary examples are to hand in the relations subsisting 
between white men and negroes in the Southern States of 
the American Union ; between European intruders and the 
black indigenous peoples of South Africa, and between the 
British in India and their brown or black subjects. Each 
of these examples differs materially from the others in 
many important respects, but all three have certain common 
features and may be studied with advantage. 

If we consider the condition of society in the United 
States of America, a racial problem of surpassing interest 
presents itself to us. We are confronted with the results of 
the dominance of race over race in a definite and most 
instructive form. There four distinct varieties of human 
kind, differentiated from each other by anatomical peculi- 
arities, by colour, and by civilisation, dwell together — a 
dominant white population of mixed European races; 
remnants of the so-called Eed-Indian race ; certain colonies 
of Chinese and Japanese; and a compact mass of about 
twelve millions of the black descendants of West Africans 
imported into the country as slaves, not conquered but 
kidnapped or else bought with gold, and only emancipated 
from bondage as recently as 1863. 

6; 



BRAHMANS, THEISTS, AND MUSLIMS OF INDIA 

Here the dominant whites disallow all matrimonial 
relations between their women and men of the other races, 
more especially the black. To such a degree is this senti- 
ment encouraged that in the Southern States of the Union, 
an outrage by a black man on a white woman is generally 
avenged by the death of the negro at the hands of infuriated 
whites, who very rarely suffer any punishment whatever for 
such lawless acts. 

Whites and blacks, even though they happen to belong 
to the same Christian sect or denomination, do not worship 
together, they do not attend the same schools,^ do not dine 
together, or even sit at the same tables, do not travel in the 
same cars, and are buried in distinct cemeteries. The white 
man does not object to his food being cooked or served up 
for him by the black man ; nor is he polluted by the black 
man's touch ; but, these points being waived, the resemblance 
between the relations of white men and negroes in the 
Southern States of the Union is strikingly similar to 
that of the highest and lowest castes amongst Hindus in 
India. 

Eepression of the blacks in the United States and else- 
where is usually explained and justified by attributing it to 
an inherent and unalterable physical repulsion, i.e., instinctive 
and unconquerable race antipathy. That striking differences 
between races, as respects physiognomy, colour, tempera- 
ment, intellectual attainments, and customs must necessarily 
lead to social incompatibility is obvious ; but what has been 
persistently preached regarding deep-seated, instinctive, and 
uncontrollable race antipathy would be more convincing if 
the white man shrank with repugnance from the black or 
red woman. But this is not so ! White men had for 



^ In 1904 an Act was passed in the State of Kentucky, imposing a fine of 
fifty dollars a day on any white person attending a negro school, or any 
negro attending a school for white persons. 

Following the example of their rulers, the Kedskins find their racial 
susceptibilities outraged by negro children being allowed to attend schools 
where their children are taught, and two years ago made representations to 
the United States Government on the subject. 

In California Japanese children are, at the present time, excluded from 
the public schools ; but the Japs, victorious over the Russians, are not likely 
to put up for long with such an indignity. 

68 



CASTE IN INDIA 

centuries formed irregular unions with their black female 
slaves, the result being an addition to the slave population 
of persons of mixed descent. 

When in the fulness of time the slave population was 
at length endowed with political freedom, at a date within 
the memory of many now living, the members of this mixed 
race preferred to mate with their own kind rather than 
with the pure blacks, and, more than that, the mixed race 
exhibited a marked tendency to subdivide into more or less 
exclusive groups, those least related by consanguinity to 
the despised black stock claiming racial and social superi- 
ority. 

That white men have nowhere shuddered at the embraces 
of black women is an indisputable fact; but on the other 
hand, that white women of a dominant nationality, being 
fully aware of the social degradation involved in any 
union, whether regular or irregular, with men of a sub- 
ject and more particularly a black subject race, should 
shrink from them is at least understandable, but such 
aversion has nothing whatever to do with instinctive race 
antipathy. 

Where distinct races, differentiated by colour, come into 
contact as conquerors and subjects, and more especially 
when the rulers, almost invariably invaders and aggressors, 
are, as is commonly the case, in the minority, the dread of 
losing their right to exploit the subject peoples by amalga- 
mating with them ever so little is so keen, that caste 
feehngs are fanatically fostered even to the extremes seen 
to-day in certain parts of South Africa — Transvaal and 
Natal, for example — where the natives are denied all political 
rights in their own land, are compelled in urban centres to 
live in appointed sites quite apart from their over-lords, 
subject to many galling restrictions,^ where even temporary 
illicit connections between immoral white women and black, 
brown or yellow men, are punishable under the law, and 
where men of non-European race are subjected to the 
humiliating indignity of being obliged to walk in the road- 
way, while the footways are reserved for whites alone. This 

^ For example, to keep within doors after a certain fixed hour not long 
after sunset, and to carry passes with them to prove their identity, etc. 

69 



BRAHMANS, THEISTS, AND MUSLIMS OF INDIA 

last is an almost identical reproduction of the treatment 
which used to be experienced by the pariahs in Southern 
India under Hindu rule, and which scandalised good Euro- 
peans so much in the past. That an Aryan Brahman from 
Central Asia should despise an aboriginal Pariah seemed a 
ridiculous and outrageous display of caste prejudice; but 
when it comes to the case of Europeans and Kaffirs, the 
matter seems to present a different aspect. 

The position of the British Indian in the Transvaal and 
other parts of South Africa is peculiarly instructive. He 
has no political rights, and possesses neither social nor 
commercial equality. His racial inferiority is the osten- 
sible cause of the position assigned to him ; but it is 
acknowledged, even officially, that the British Indian owes 
his unfair disabilities to his marked success as a tradesman 
to the pecuniary detriment of his white competitors. 

How mere industrial competition engenders race-hatred 
is exemplified by a quite recent and novel incident, the 
immigration of some 2500 Sikhs into British Columbia, re- 
garding which Col. Talk Warren writes in November 1906, 
that although the conduct of these immigrants has been 
entirely exemplary, " a campaign of calumny and vitupera- 
tion has been and continues to be engineered against them, 
to which the politicians who seek to maintain the labour 
-vote are forced to submit." ^ 

In India the British form a distinct caste, the most 
exclusive and haughty varna in the land. Though, theo- 
retically. Englishmen laugh at and condemn caste, they, like 
others, are sticklers for it whenever their own interests are 
concerned, and, whatever their official utterances may be, 
Anglo-Indians are well pleased that the caste-ridden Hindus 
are what they are. To members of the ruling race in private 
life, no one is more distasteful than the denationalised 
Hindu gentleman, whatever his rank, who, putting aside 
his caste prejudices, and willing to conform to European 
social laws and etiquette, would seek to establish inti- 
mate friendly relations with the disinterested exiles, who 
devote their lives to the thankless task of governing and 
uplifting their Indian fellow-subjects. 

^ Pioneer Mail (Allahabad), 11th January 1907. 
70 



CASTE IN INDIA 

I have made it clear, I hope, that the feeling of race 
antagonism, which is at the root of caste distinctions, lies 
primarily in a sense of the danger to life, authority, privi- 
leges or trade profits likely to ensue from any fusion or 
friendly intercourse between the rulers and the ruled, as 
such blending or association would inevitably undermine 
the assumed natural superiority of the ruling race (usually 
a minority), damage their prestige, curtail their exclusive 
privileges or commercial gains, and be subversive of the 
existing dominancy, whether political or economic. 

It may be urged that in the United States of America 
the blacks are numerically inferior to the whites, and are 
now free citizens of the Great Bepuhlic, and that the repulsion 
felt towards them by the whites is therefore not that of 
rulers towards a more or less dangerous subject race. With- 
out admitting — for no one could do so — that the negro in 
the United States of America is a free man, with the rights 
and privileges of a citizen, since he is kept from the polls 
by actual violence or fraud, I would point out that the 
emancipated slave is, by reason of his emancipation, thrown, 
as a wage-earner, into unavoidable competition with free 
w^hite labour of all kinds, and this renders him more 
personally odious to the white man than ever he was 
before. Besides, the white employer has now lost the power 
of exploiting the negro as he formerly did, and the white 
business man can no longer ignore him as a competitor, how- 
ever heavily handicapped, in the general struggle for wealth, 
which means power. Moreover, the very fact that the negroes 
in the States were, not so long ago, a servile race, only 
widens the gulf between whites and blacks, for, laws or no 
laws, the taint of their long slavery still clings to the negro 
race, and will continue to do so. However, it is undoubtedly 
the industrial competition of the/ree negro and the free white 
which is at preserit the most important factor in encour- 
aging and embittering the race-hatred which disfigures the 
relations of the whites and the negroes in the United States,^ 

^ That under certain reasonable economic and administrative conditions 
white men and negroes can live together in harmony and to their mutual 
advantage, is evident from the present state of Jamaica, as has been shown 
by Mr. Sydney Olivier in his little book White Capitcd and Coloured Labour. 

71 



BRAHMANS, THEISTS, AND MUSLIMS OF INDIA 

From a general survey of the matter it may be asserted 
that, carried away by conceit, a dominant race naturally 
arrogates to itself a fundamental, inherent, and permanent 
superiority, and Western science explains such claims by 
setting up anthropological standards based on morphological, 
and especially craniological peculiarities ; and offers various 
plausible theories of race evolution, leading to the foregone 
conclusion that any mixture of the superior with inferior 
races can result in nothing but degeneration, and should 
therefore be avoided by the superior stock at all costs, even 
the persecution and, if necessary, extermination of the in- 
ferior. Much has been written on these subjects, but it is 
perhaps worth recalling to mind that, practically, as the 
world's history shows, the superior of two races at any 
period is the one that, having subdued the other, finds itself 
in a position which enables its members to swagger as masters 
and tetter men in comparison with the vanquished, and, for 
the time being, the claim is undoubtedly tenable. 

If what has been already stated be correct, the com- 
prehension of the problem of the genesis and evolution of 
race prejudice does not present insurmountable difficulties. 

Assuming as a permanent fact that the climatic con- 
ditions — temperature, sunshine, moisture, soil, and elevation 
above sea-level — of various portions of the earth's surface 
will always present marked differences, it will, no doubt, be 
granted that any tribe, or body of men established for a lo7ig 
period of time on any particular locality would develop, in 
response to its environment, such special morphological and 
psychological characteristics as would differentiate it from 
the races or types of men evolved elsewhere under dis- 
similar climatic conditions. Now, if rivalry and competition, 
whether political or commercial, arise between such distinct 
peoples of alien civilisations, unbearable irritation and fierce 
antagonisms are generated, feelings which find expression 
in acts of hostility, conquest, and oppression on the part of 
the stronger ; such acts being justified before the world by 
exaggerated vilification of the down-trodden people, who, 
filled with resentment, indulge in what reprisals they 
can or dare attempt. The vilification just referred to 
reiterated, generation after generation, comes to be accepted 

72 



CASTE IN INDIA 

as embodying irrefragable verities, and breeds a settled 
contempt and aversion for the weaker, vanquished people 
in the minds of men and women of the dominant race ; 
the prejudice thus established and perpetuated being easily 
mistaken for a fundamental instinct due to subtle causes 
traceable to eternal and unalterable laws of nature. 

The foregoing studies bearing on caste in the social 
life of communities outside India and outside Hinduism, 
although deliberately kept within very narrow limits, reveal 
the existence of certain notable lines of social cleavage, 
traceable to various causes, the most important being: 
Bacial pride on the part of members of tribes or nation- 
alities which are, or have at some time previous been 
predominant, such pride being greatly accentuated by 
differences of colour when they exist ; pride in hereditary 
privileges, offices, and titles indicative of ancestral superi- 
ority ; and greed evidenced by a strong desire on the part 
of a ruling class to exploit the conquered for their own 
advantage. 

Among minor causes of social cleavage in communities 
may be instanced : Incompatibility, and often animosity 
arising out of religious differences ; educational inequalities as 
affecting whole classes ; for example, the priestly and learned 
professions as compared with the working classes ; and, lastly, 
the nature of the occupation followed for a livelihood. 

Out of the sentiments, motives, and circumstances just 
detailed, arise in all societies many well-defined religious 
groups, and many clearly marked social ranks with certain 
arbitrary, perhaps unreasonable conventions of their own, 
the disregard of which is visited with penalties or dis- 
abilities more or less pronounced. The conventions I 
refer to have their raison d'ttre in the selfish and most 
natural desire of each group or rank to maintain, as far 
as may be possible, the social barriers between its own 
and other loiver sections of the community, and con- 
sequently to discourage intimate or even friendly inter- 
course, and more particularly marriage, between members 
of distinct groups. That such conventions or caste pre- 
judices are considered indispensable for the stability of 
communities, may account for their universality. 

73 



BRAHMANS, THEISTS, AND MUSLIMS OF INDIA 

India could not, of course, be exempt from the opera- 
tion of so general a law; but India exhibits the social 
phenomena of caste in a peculiar form. Its caste divisions 
are multitudinous and well defined. All of them, and not 
only a few as elsewhere, are hereditary, and their mainten- 
ance has the semblance of a religious duty, inasmuch as 
it is strongly supported in the case of each group by the 
Brahmans, who guide the spiritual life of each separate 
community. In this last stated fact lies the salient 
distinguishing feature of the Hindu system. It is a quasi- 
religious system; hence independent of secular laws, and 
instead of being a cause for heart-burning and jealousy, 
is more often than not a source of pride even amongst 
members of the humbler castes. So deeply is caste feeling 
rooted amongst the Indian people that not only do Hindus 
respect the caste system, but, as explained already, Hindus 
converted to Islam also, to some extent, surrender them- 
selves to its potent hereditary influence, and often, too. 
Christianised Indians cannot quite emancipate themselves 
from its thraldom.^ 

^ The native Christian headmaster of a mission school was asked in a 
court of justice what his religion was. 

He replied: "Brahman-Christian." 

The European judge, not recognising such a sect, asked for more 
information. 

The headmaster then reiterated his former statement that lie was a 
"Brahman-Christian," adding with some warmth: "I cannot call my- 
self simply a Christian when that ChooraJi (sweeper) there is also a 
Christian. I am a Brahman-Christian, sir," and he said this by way of 
asserting his claim to racial superiority, not desiring that it should he 
forgotten because he had adopted a new creed. 



74 




CASTE IN mBIA— continued 

Section V. — An attempt to throw some light upon the genesis and 
evolution of the Hindu caste system, 

OW the Hindu caste system really originated 
we do not actually know, and never shall 
know. But by the laborious researches of 
many capable inquirers and the intelligent 
investigations of many competent English 
officials, aided by native staffs, a great store 
of facts relating to the present state and past history of 
the Hindu caste system has been gradually accumulated, 
and several attempts have been made to derive from the data 
thus made available some more or less satisfactory explana- 
tion of the origin and development of the system. We 
have proof that it is of old standing, that it has not been 
exempt from mutation, and that it has been of gradual de- 
velopment. We are, moreover, able to trace the formation 
of certain new castes in India within quite recent times. 
The long past history of the world is not to be read like 
an open book; but, as in the science of geology, so in 
history, a close study of recent and contemporary happen- 
ings may help us to gain an insight into operations and 
events of which no direct or reliable records are available. 

The preliminary studies, to which the previous section 
was devoted, show there are certain social and political 
conditions which, wherever they exist, have, quite irre- 
spective of Hinduism, tended towards the genesis of 
hereditary caste distinctions. With this knowledge to 
guide us, and by the light of such fragmentary traditional 
and historical data as are available, we may not unreason- 
ably hope to arrive at more or less satisfactory ideas 

75 



BRAHMANS, THEISTS, AND MUSLIMS OF INDIA 

regarding the origin and growth of the exceedingly complex 
caste system as it exists to-day in India. 

As stated previously, the Sanskrit word for caste is 
varna, meaning colour, and this gives us at least one im- 
portant clue to the solution of the problem, for it shows 
clearly that the Hindu caste system arose primarily out of 
the contact of races strongly differentiated by colour. What 
such contact leads to, even amongst nations contemporary 
with ourselves, we have already seen. But the conditions 
and circumstances of the old-world racial conflict, out of 
which emerged by gradual development the Hindu caste 
system, were widely different from those which have obtained 
in the United States of America, or in South Africa, or 
in India under British rule. 

At a remote period, perhaps 1500 B.C., certain Aryan ^ 
tribes coming from Central Asia commenced invading the 
north-western corner of the already partially inhabited 
territories now known as India, bringing with them a 
religion which may be characterised as a vague physiolatry, 
represented more or less, at a later stage, by four collec- 
tions of hymns known as Vedas.^ Their form of govern- 
ment seems to have been constructed on clan lines. It 

^ From certain resemblances and aiBnities which the study of languages 
has revealed, philologists infer tliat the most important European races on 
the one hand, and the inhabitants of Persia, Armenia, Afghanistan, and 
Northern India on the other hand, had a common origin, and the name 
Aryan has been used to designate this group of Indo-European nations. 
As to where the original home or cradle of the primitive Aryans lay, the 
philologists have not been able to agree. Some find it is Central Asia, 
others in Europe. 

^ The Vedas are the Eig, the Sama, the Yajur, and the Aiarva. The 
first of these and the most important is a collection of some 1028 hymns 
addressed, for the most part, to personified powers of Nature, such as Agni 
(Fire), Surya (The Sun), Indra(The Atmosphere), etc. The Savia and the 
Vajur Vedas are composed almost exclusively of the hymns of the Eig 
Veda arranged for sacrificial purposes. The Atarva Veda, of later origin 
than the others, is a collection of hymns taken from the Rig Veda intended 
to serve as charms to prevent or to cure diseases, to drive away demons, t 
frustrate sorcerers and enemies, to ensure victory in battle, to promote 
virility, to obtain a husband or wife, to arouse the passionate love of a man 
or a woman, to guarantee safety at an assignation, to allay jealousy, to 
stimulate the growth of the hair, and to secure a hundred other advan- 
tages both trivial and important ; often, of course, at the expense of 
others. 

76 



CASTE IN INDIA 

was in fact a dan organisation, a federation of separate 
tribes, sub-tribes, and clans under their own chiefs.^ 

And, if the learned M. Senart is correct, the social 
organisation of these Aryan invaders was based on principles 
which underlie the later caste system of the Hindus. Un- 
fortunately, however, there is no direct evidence for this 
conclusion, which is based upon certain resemblances and 
analogies in the social customs relating to marriage and 
food amongst the Greeks and Eomans on the one hand, and 
the Hindus on the other. 

The races and tribes inhabiting India when the Aryans 
came into the country had, of course, their own peculiar 
cults and languages, and also their polities, which last were 
probably, in most cases, tribal and not unlike that of the 
Aryans themselves. 

One tribe of Aryan invaders would naturally be followed 
by another, and yet another, one clan would drift after 
another as the attractions of the sunny plains to the south 
of the Himalayas became known in the home lands of the 
Aryan race. Two distinct streams of Aryan invaders or 
immigrants composed of distinct tribes and clans seem, 
according to our best authorities, to have penetrated the 
new territories; one from the north-west into the Punjab 
and the other through Gilgit and Chitral into the plains 
watered by the Ganges and Jumna,^ and there can be no 
doubt that following the line of least resistance, or attracted 
by special natural advantages of soil or climate, the separate 
clan organisations or even the distinct clans squatted where 
they could, and often out of touch with each other. 

The proportion of women which each immigrant clan 
could bring along with it would naturally depend upon 
many circumstances; but in any case there would be a 
deficiency of Aryan women in each intrusive group ; just as 
there is at the present time a paucity of European women 
in colonies planted abroad in newly acquired territories. 

During the long centuries of conflict which followed 

^ B. H. Baden-Powell, The Indian Village Community, pp. 192-195. 

" This latter stream of immigrants was suggested by Dr. Hoernle to 
account for the Aryo-Di*avidian type of the inhabitants of the United 
Provinces. 

77 



BRAHMANS, THEISTS, AND MUSLIMS OF INDIA 

these invasions and witnessed the successful, but very 
gradual, progress of the Aryans eastward and southward, 
contact with alien forms of belief and unavoidable misce- 
genation must have tended to modify the original religion 
and the social life of the Aryan invaders. Desirous of 
preserving their national faith, and above all their racial 
ascendancy amidst the dangers with which they were 
surrounded in their new southern home, the invaders appear 
to have recognised with instinctive wisdom the important 
truth that for the attainment of these ends a first and most 
essential step would be the establishment of a hereditary 
priesthood for the efficient performance of rites and sacrifices, 
and as custodians and interpreters of the law, and of a 
hereditary class of warriors always ready for the fight. 

Professional pride and the requirements of their re- 
spective callings caused these two important classes to 
become exclusive communities within the body politic. The 
remainder of the Aryan invaders naturally fell into a third 
noble class, mostly concerned, as agriculturists and tradesmen, 
to promote the creation and accumulation of wealth ; while 
the conquered tribes would, without doubt, supply the servile 
element in the community, and so constitute a fourth class 
of decidedly inferior status, debarred from meddling with 
matters religious, and denied the privilege of carrying 
arms. 

When established as conquerors, the Aryans would, of 
course, comport themselves like other successful races in 
their dealings with subject peoples, and endeavour to secure 
for themselves the maximum amount of contributions 
and service from the conquered. Their own polity would 
suggest that the subject peoples should, for revenue and 
other governmental purposes, be considered and held respon- 
sible by tribes, clans, and even occupations, and this we 
have reason to believe was the plan actually adopted by 
the Aryans in their dealings with the Indian aborigines.^ 

As a consequence of their predominance, and by way of 
justification of their high-handed dealings with the subdued 
tribes, the ruling race would naturally vilify the latter, and 

^ B. H. Baden-Powell, CLE., The Indian Village Community, chap. v. 
sec. ii. 

78 



CASTE IN INDIA 

in the old Hindu literature the black autochthones are 
represented as disgusting monsters and vile demons. 

The various detachments of Aryans who, from time to 
time, under the pressure of circumstances moved forward 
amongst the aborigines would become smaller and smaller 
as they divided off to find suitable locations, while the 
proportion of Aryan women amongst these dwindling bands 
would also be reduced, so that the immigrants would, to a 
large extent, be forced to take wives from the people 
amongst whom they intruded themselves. But, as Mr. 
Eisley has pointed out, miscegenation would be discontinued 
as soon as each mixed tribe had a sufficient number of 
women to provide itself with wives. At this stage, inter- 
marriage with the aborigines would be strictly tabooed. 
Thus endogamous communities of mixed descent would 
be formed in the midst of the aborigines. But finality is 
impossible in human institutions. The very attainment of 
a position of security and dominance would call into play 
forces which in all societies tend to produce distinct classes 
and grades, such forces being strengthened in the case of 
Aryan immigrants by their already well-established caste 
ideals. Under the influence of these general and special 
causes, as well as for administrative purposes on the clan 
system, the settled community we have had in view would 
naturally fall, or be divided into many minor groups, each 
group being made up mostly of allied families united by a 
common occupation. 

The various Aryan mixed tribes in their new and often 
widely separated homes would be differentiated from one 
another owing to various causes, such as the length of time 
they had been cut off from the parent stock, the ethnical 
peculiarities, religions, and civilisations of the particular 
aboriginal races amongst whom they had established them- 
selves, and the extent to which they had intermarried with 
these natives. Each of these distinct Aryan settlements 
would become the centre of a new group of castes. 

In their isolation, the members of each little band 
claiming Aryan descent would draw closer the bonds of 
clanship, and though of mixed blood would become prouder 
Aryans, and greater sticklers for exclusiveness than their 

79 



BRAHMANS, THEISTS, AND MUSLIMS OF INDIA 

stay-at-home kindred. And we find this very peculiarity 
to-day. Fanatical respect for the observance of caste 
regulations does not exist in an equal degree throughout 
India. There is, as might have been expected, no uniformity 
in this respect, since the racial peculiarities, the political 
history, and the prevailing conditions of life are extremely 
dissimilar in the different countries which constitute the 
sub-continent which we designate India; but at the same 
time more laxity in certain points is observable in Aryan 
centres, the Punjab for example, than would be tolerated in 
the more remote provinces of Madras and Bengal, where 
the Aryan element is present in the Brahman caste alone. 

However great may have been the martial and political 
successes of the Aryans in the extensive regions south of 
the Himalayas, they are probably credited with more than 
they achieved; an idea which derives support from the 
absence from India of slavery of the kind conquerors have 
not uncommonly imposed upon the peoples they have 
subdued. 

The ethnological facts at our command show clearly 
that the Aryans were not able to destroy or even displace 
the Dravidian and other races, which probably formed the 
bulk of the population of the lands they invaded. To this 
day the Dravidian retains a very conspicuous and important 
place amongst the races of India, either in a pure state 
or mingled with the Aryans, Scythians, and Mongolians. 
Towards the south and east of the peninsula is the strong- 
hold of the Dravidians, whilst the influence of Aryan 
blood is most marked in Kashmir, the Punjab, and Eaj- 
putana, and, in a less degree, in the territory now known 
as the United Provinces. 

According to the ethnological map which accompanies 
the latest Indian Census Eeport, the Indo-Aryan race 
has not even a preponderating place in modern India, 
its ethnic influence being, as already stated, confined to 
Kashmir, the Punjab, Eajputana, and the United Provinces. 
Yet even where the population is non-Aryan the Brahmani- 
cal religion is honoured, and Brahmans hold the highest 
place in the social scale. It has to be noted, however, that 
the Brahmans in non-Aryan centres, though they usually 

80 



CASTE IN INDIA 

exhibit Aryan characteristics, in some cases belong un- 
doubtedly to the aboriginal stock, e.g., Mongolians in 
Assam, and Dravidians in Madras.^ 

If we turn our attention from the Brahmans to the 
religion associated with them, we find that the Hindu 
religion and the gods worshipped are by no means identical 
over India. Hinduism as we find it to-day is a congeries 
of many and various indigenous cults, supplied with suitable 
myths and legends designed to link each with the others 
in some more or less direct way. Hinduism everywhere 
requires veneration of the cow, supports the caste system, 
and assigns the highest place in the body politic to 
the hereditary Brahman priesthood. Behind the local 
Brahmanical cults we have a background of Pantheism, with 
belief in reincarnations and the doctrine of Karma, this latter 
being unknown to the Indo- Aryans of the Vedic age. How 
these momentous doctrines were evolved, is a question still in 
obscurity. Were they thought out by the Indo-Aryans in 
their new home, or did they find the germs of them already 
developed amongst one or other of the more advanced 
Dravidian races of the South ? Certain it is that the belief in 
reincarnations and Karma — an essential feature of Hinduism 
as well as of Buddhism, Jainism, and Sikhism — is held by 
a very large proportion of the world's inhabitants, not only 
in India but far beyond its borders. 

Three points in the foregoing statements call for special 
consideration : the remarkable position accorded to the 
Brahmans throughout India even in vast territories where 
the Aryan race is not ethnically represented; the fact 
that Brahmans are not always of the Aryan race; and 
that under the common name, Hinduism, are embraced 
many very dissimilar cults. 

Now the very exceptional position of the Brahmans is 
a fact of the greatest significance, for it suggests that it 
was the Aryan priestly caste which made an intellectual 
conquest of lands where the fighting Aryans never estab- 
lished themselves. That the Brahmans by intermarrying 
with the alien races lost their pure nationality in the 
course of time need not be doubted ; but the fact that 
^ Dr. J. N. Bhattacliarjee, Hindu Castes and Sects, pp. 58, 59, and 96. 
F 8l 



BRAHMANS, THEISTS, AND MUSLIMS OF INDIA 

in the Dravidian and Mongolo-Dravidian countries of India 
Brahmans are sometimes not of Aryan rac9 at all is, I 
believe, due to the assumption of the Brahmanic name, with 
its status and privileges, by non-Aryans ; a surmise which 
is supported by the case of the numerically insignificant 
caste of Amma Kodagas or Kaveri Brahmans of Coorg, 
who being the indigenous priesthood devoted to the 
worship of the Goddess Amma, have set up Brahmanical 
pretensions.^ To this may be added the case of the 
Bhojakas of Jvalamukhi in the Punjab, who, although 
claiming to belong to the Hindu priesthood, are believed 
to be descendants of a servile class connected from of old 
with the famous temple there.^ 

The heterogeneity of Hinduism is to my mind a result 
of the Brahman conquest of India. As missionaries, the 
Brahmans would receive into their fold, as indeed they 
have been known to do in quite recent times, any tribe or 
clan that agreed to accept their spiritual guidance and 
leadership. They would, with rare liberality, find places 
in the Hindu Pantheon for the gods of the tribes won over 
to Brahmanism, and would guarantee the integrity of 
time-honoured tribal customs, especially those regulating 
marriage. 

By these means the Brahmans would facilitate the 
spread of Brahmanism, while securing the allegiance of 
their new disciples. For the maintenance of the position 
and influence of the priestly order over their flock, it was of 
the highest importance that their hereditary superiority 
should be acknowledged and upheld. Nothing could pos- 
sibly conduce more to that end than the acceptance by the 
people of a divinely sanctioned caste system of which the 
priests should be recognised as the unapproachable heads, 
and it would be for these priests to encourage the formation 
and perpetuation of such a caste system by every means 
at their command. 

Each group of Brahmans successful in a new territory 
would desire to exploit the tribes which they had been 
instrumental in bringing within the pale of Brahmanism, 

^ Dr. John AVilson, Indian Caste, vol. ii. pp. 72, 73. 
^ Idem, vol. ii. p. 133. 

82 



CASTE IN INDIA 

aud to ensure that such tribes should belong, as it were, to 
their own particular family for ever. Nothing could further 
these objects better than that annexed tribes should be crys- 
tallised, as it were, into distinct groups owning allegiance 
to their own special Brahmans, and separated by social 
barriers from other tribes annexed and exploited by other 
successful Brahman missionaries. 

For the better understanding of the situation which I 
have endeavoured to picture, let us imagine that in Europe 
and America all contributions towards Foreign Christian 
Missions ceased; so that the missionaries abroad in Asia 
and Africa would have no pecuniary or other support from 
home. 

The Christian missionaries in India, faithful to their 
labour of love, would, we may presume, continue to live in 
the land of their adoption, for the good of that land ; 
but notwithstanding their unselfishness they would be 
driven to make what living they could out of the generosity 
of their several flocks. Now these flocks, though all pro- 
fessing Christianity, would belong to distinct and sometimes 
hostile denominations. To ensure their own subsistence, 
and that of their children, the missionaries of each sect 
would endeavour, even more than they do at present, to 
keep their respective flocks uncontaminated by inter- 
marriage or intercourse with the unconverted, and they 
would strenuously guard their spiritual children from 
adopting the dangerous opinions and objectionable prac- 
tices of other Christian sects. Common prudence would 
dictate these feelings, and self-interest, coupled with paternal 
solicitude, would suggest to each missionary group the 
desirability of making their spiritual calling hereditary. 
Cut off from the home land, the Christian missionaries of 
alien race would, under the imagined conditions, doubtless 
form a distinctive caste. Left to their own resources, 
uncontrolled by a central authority^ they would soon learn 
for their own advantage to relax the rules for the admission 
of converts to their fold, and many customs and even beliefs 
would then be tolerated and even accepted, which under 
existing circumstances are rigorously excluded. 

Now to my thinking the position of the Brahman 

83 



BRAHMANS, THEISTS, AND MUSLIMS OF INDIA 

missionaries in the midst of the aborigines of Dravidian 
stock was in many respects analogous to that of the 
Christian missionaries in the hypothetical situation in which 
I have just envisaged them. 

Imitation on the part of the Dravidian tribes, clans, or 
groups of families won over to Brahmanism would facili- 
tate the establishment of the clan or caste system, as the 
aborigines would naturally adopt the customs and more 
especially the prejudices of their spiritual guides, and strive 
to fit into the new system such endogamous or other 
marriage rules as obtained amongst themselves. Even to-day 
this process of transformation and the origination of caste 
is going on, especially in the eastern parts of India, and 
ought to be taken into account. 

Of imitation, which in such cases is so powerful an agent 
in the moulding of habits and customs, we see something 
in the contemporary doings of native Christians, who are 
developing a marked tendency to adopt the manners and 
especially the prejudices of their European models. 

Some castes probably originated in offshoot immigrant 
bands being entirely cut off from communication with the 
parent stock or other branches of the family. Unable to 
preserve the purity of their blood, language, or religion, such 
bands would in their isolation form exclusive communities 
of their own, falling as usual into occupational groups. 

From the particulars which I have placed before the 
reader, it would appear that the genesis and evolution of 
the diverse castes which now exist in India, or have existed 
in times past, are due not to one, but to a multiplicity of 
different, subtle, and concurrent causes, some too illusive to 
be ascertained or gauged. But on the other hand there are 
undoubtedly a few of these causes so fundamental and of 
such general application that their influence and effect can 
be clearly traced throughout the long history of caste 
development. Nationality is one of these, for it cannot, I 
think, be questioned that a number of the different Hindu 
castes originated, in all probability, in the first instance 
from distinct if minor nationalities, tribes, or clans, having 
their own customs and psychological characteristics. Some 
local castes are obviously aggregations of families having a 

84 



CASTE IN INDIA 

common hereditary occupation or trade ; while other castes 
have undoubtedly arisen from religious (sectarian) schisms. 

Mr. Eisley's view that caste in India has an ethnic basis 
and arose out of conflicts between white and black races in 
the olden time, is to my mind substantially correct ; but I 
believe that what I have urged regarding the deliberate and 
conscious action of the hereditary Brahmanic priesthood, in 
promoting and consolidating the caste system for the en- 
hancement of their own power and pecuniary advantage, is 
as important a factor in the case as any other, and is indeed 
the vital peculiarity of the Hindu caste system, while giving 
it a quasi-religious dignity. Brahmans wherever they went 
amongst the aborigines claimed the first place in society by 
virtue of caste, and in so doing had necessarily, for the 
maintenance of their own pretensions, to build up or 
encourage the growth of a social system in which caste 
should be the fundamental feature. Only in a recognised 
caste system could their pretensions be treated with defer- 
ence. Much religious and ritualistic latitude had to be 
conceded in order to secure and maintain the Brahmanic 
ascendancy, especially in places far removed from the Aryan 
homeland; and it is, I believe, to this enforced tolerance 
of local cults, and the absence of any central antliority, that 
the great diversity of religions embraced under Hinduism 
is attributable. 



85 




CASTE IN mDlA— continued 

Section VI, — Caste considered with respect to its political and 
economic aspects and its probable future. 

ONTEASTING- aristocracies with democracies, 
Dr. John Beattie Crozier, in his book Civilisa- 
tion and Progress, makes certain remarks 
bearing upon the Indian caste system which 
as they represent the ordinary European 
views on the matter may profitably detain 
us a moment. 

" Besides in democracies," says Dr. Crozier, " where 
the least possible restraint is put on freedom of action, 
only such restraints are put on freedom or expression 
of thought as are indispensable for common morality ; 
whereas, in aristocracies, besides these restraints, there 
is the more minute and circumstantial pressure, imposed 
on each individual, by a host of unwritten customs, 
prejudices, sentiments, and traditions. Take India and 
America as examples ; one, of the most rigid of all 
forms of aristocracy, that of caste; the other, of the 
purest and most advanced of democracies; and what 
do we find ? In India, the tyranny of custom, opinion, 
and mode of life is so great, that the slightest infringe- 
ment is followed by a loss of caste, and the loss of 
caste is tantamount to a sentence of execution; and, 
from old habit and custom, this tyranny is worn so 
easily and smoothly that men walk about to all out- 
ward appearance as if they were really free. But in 
America freedom of thought and sentiment is so com- 
plete, that you have the spectacle, hitherto unknown, 
of Catholics and Protestants, Atheists and Mormons, 
Freelovers, Shakers, and Quakers all living quietly side 
by side in peaceful toleration ; and the sense of liberty 
2>6 



CASTE IN INDIA 

so acute, that the slightest restraint galls the spirit 
and raises aloud the cry of tyranny and oppression, 
which the effete aristocracies hearing from a distance 
regard with secret satisfaction as the forerunner of 
disruption and ruin." ^ 

With what feelings " the effete aristocracies " may regard 
American protests against the slightest restraint imposed 
by authority does not concern me, but I feel strongly that 
the contrast which Dr. Crozier has instituted, in the above- 
quoted extract, between " America," which I presume means 
the United States, and India, is extremely infelicitous, for 
whatever may be the " freedom of thought and sentiment " 
enjoyed at the present time in the United States, quite 
as much " freedom of thought and sentiment " as regards 
philosophical and religious matters is now and has always 
been enjoyed in caste-ridden India, where for ages the 
greatest variety of sects and of religions also — not exclud- 
ing various forms of Christianity — have existed peacefully, 
even as they do at the present time, while many practices, 
polygamy for example — fully sanctioned by the Old Testa- 
ment — are recognised as lawful in India, though not toler- 
ated in free America, where the Mormons have been forced 
to give it up. Again, it is an undeniable fact (as shown in a 
previous section) that in the United States caste prejudices 
on the part of the white races arising out of industrial com- 
petition between them and the black and yellow races are 
even more conspicuous, vehement, intolerant, and inimical 
to true liberty and equality than they are in India even 
under foreign rule. Further, Dr. Crozier's idea, which 
appears to be a very common one, that the slightest infringe- 
ment of caste customs in India is visited with loss of caste, 
which " is tantamount to a sentence of execution," is, as we 
have already seen, absolutely incorrect. Permanent loss of 
caste is an infliction of very rare occurrence, and, though 
socially a very serious trouble, it does not, as I shall presently 
show, involve under British rule the loss or impairment of 
any civil or legal rights. Looking at all the facts without 
prejudice I am inclined to hold that a larger proportion of 
men and women lose their places irreparably in the ranks 

^ Civilisation and Progress (1888), pp. 356, 357. 

8/ 



BRAHMANS, THEISTS, AND MUSLIMS OF INDIA 

of "Western than of Hindu society, because amongst the 
Hindus there are prescribed methods — suitable religious 
ceremonies, purificatory rites, and reparation — by which 
lost status might be regained, whereas no such authoritative 
or recognised provision is made for the rehabilitation of the 
offender against society in the West. 

The cool assumption of freedom from petty prejudices 
and from the tyranny of custom which Westerns commonly 
make in their supercilious criticisms of Oriental social and 
religious life would be amusing were it not grossly inaccurate 
and needlessly offensive. The tyranny of custom is not 
peculiar to India or to the East. Occidental or Oriental, 
each has his own more or less minute and rigid rules for 
the conduct of domestic life, the regulation of social inter- 
course, modes of eating and drinking, and the ordering of 
official functions. Each has his own canons with respect 
to dress, behaviour, etiquette, and honour, far more com- 
plicated perhaps in the West than in the East. But the 
Western, while conforming docilely, even slavishly, to the 
conventions which govern private and official intercourse 
at home, contemplates with raised eyebrows the dreadful 
burden which the Eastern bears unmurmuringly. But the 
Asiatic's burden is in ordinary life no heavier than his own ; 
only it is different. That is all ! 

Amongst the more important forces now at work in 
determining the future of the caste system is the British 
Government in India, whose attitude in this matter deserves 
attention. As a rule, the British Indian Government ignores 
and thereby discourages all caste distinctions, and by 
placing all Indians upon a legal equality declines, no doubt 
rightly, to concede any special privileges to men of the 
superior castes in their relations with their fellow-country- 
men. It has further by law deliberately undermined the 
coercive power of caste as a recognised legal institution, for 
Act XXI. of 1850 rules as follows :— 

" So much of any law or usage now in force within 
the territories of the East India Company as inflicts 
on any person forfeiture of rights and property, or 
may be held in any way to impair or affect any right 
of inheritance by reason of his or her having been 
88 



CASTE IN INDIA 

excluded from the communion of any religion or being 
deprived of caste, shall cease to be enforced as law in 
the Courts of the East India Company and in the 
Courts established by Eoyal Charter within the said 
territories." 

In other words, no man, whatever be his offences against 
his caste, shall, on account of merely such offences, suffer 
any forfeiture of rights or property, even after being expelled 
from the society of his caste-fellows. That the law in 
question has seriously weakened the power previously 
enjoyed by both Hinduism and Islam for the restraining 
or punishing of apostasy is obvious. This point has been 
acknowledged, discussed, and justified by that well-known 
jurist Sir James Fitzjames Stephen.^ 

This attitude of the paramount authority towards the 
ancient caste regulations, due though it be to a natural 
want of sympathy with Hindu ideals, may possibly have 
proved acceptable to some sections of the lowest castes of 
the community. By the rest it has been ordinarily accepted 
and endured with the meekness which is characteristic of 
the Hindus; but beneath the calm exterior of patient 
acquiescence there may always be found a sensitiveness 
not far removed from suppressed irritation, and occasionally 
some positive act of culpable official ignorance or high- 
handedness has so outraged the deep-seated caste prejudices 
of a section, or it may be of the entire Hindu community, 
that the resentment aroused by it has had deplorable 
results. It would not be difficult to cull from the records 
of the past many examples to illustrate this statement ; 
but it will suffice to take only the most startling instance 
of all, the great Sepoy revolt of 1857-58, writ large in blood- 
stained characters across the pages of Indian history. 

Although this is not the place for a discussion of the 
many causes which led to that great upheaval, such as 
interference with immemorial religious customs and breaches 
of political faith on the part of the British in India, I may 
be permitted to state my conviction that the Mutiny would 
never have attained the formidable proportions it did had 

^ "Legislation under Lord Mayo," being chapter viii. vol. ii. of Sir 
W. W. Hunter's Life of the Earl of Mayo. 

' 89 



BRAHMANS, THEISTS, AND MUSLIMS OF INDIA 

it not been for the egregious and criminal folly which led 
to the cartridges issued to the Sepoys from the Government 
manufactories being greased with the fat of loth coivs 
and pigs, the former abhorred by all Hindus on account of 
their veneration of the cow, the latter repugnant to all 
Muhammadans because of its impurity and condemnation 
by their Prophet. 

For the comprehension of the matter it is necessary to 
bear in mind that the muskets for which the cartridges 
were supplied were all muzzle-loaders, that the cartridge 
case, which held the gunpowder and bullet in two compart- 
ments, was simply made of strong paper (known, for this 
very reason, as cartridge paper) well greased to exclude 
damp from the gunpowder. The military regulations 
required that the paper over the gunpowder end of the 
cartridge should be Mtten off by the Sepoy before inserting 
the cartridge into the muzzle of the barrel, in order that 
the powder might be set free to run down to the nipple 
fixed at the lower end. The bullet with the paper case, of 
course, descended on top of the gunpowder, and both were 
driven home with the ramrod. Thus every Sepoy was 
forced, each time he loaded his musket, not only to handle, 
but actually to introduce into his movith the fat of both 
kine and swine. 

Now although the tendency of the caste system is 
undoubtedly to break up the body politic into more or less 
discordant communities, there is yet one deep-seated religious 
sentiment common to all Hindu castes alike, and that is 
profound, unreasoning veneration of the cow as a sacred 
animal, with the consequent horror of introducing beef into 
the mouth in any form, and, strange to say, it was this one 
universal caste prejudice which was contemptuously out- 
raged by the greased cartridges issued to the Sepoys, amongst 
whom were serving a number of Brahmans. 

Some, I am aware, discredit the story of the greased 
cartridges ; but since the momentous days of 1857-58, 
which I passed in Calcutta, I have myself had no doubt 
about the matter, and was, therefore, not surprised to read 
the following in Lord Eoberts' important book. Forty-one 
Years in India : 

90 



CASTE IN INDIA 

" The recent researches of Mr. Forrest in the records 
of the Government of India prove that the lubricating 
mixture used in preparing the cartridges was actually 
composed of the objectionable ingredients, cow's fat 
and lard, and that incredible disregard of the soldiers' 
religious prejudices was displayed in the manufacture 
of these cartridges. When the Sepoys complained that 
to bite them would destroy their caste, they were 
solemnly assured by their officers that they had been 
greased with a perfectly unobjectionable mixture. The 
officers, understanding, as all who have come in contact 
with natives are supposed to understand, their intense 
abhorrence of touching the flesh or fat of the sacred 
cow or the unclean pig, did not believe it possible 
that the authorities could have been so regardless of 
the Sepoys' feelings as to have allowed it to be used 
in preparing their ammunition ; they, therefore, made 
this statement in perfect good faith. But nothing was 
easier than for the men belonging to the regiments 
quartered near Calcutta to ascertain, from the low- 
caste native workmen employed in manufacturing 
the cartridges at the rort^William arsenal, that the 
assurances of their officers were not in accordance with 
facts, and they were thus prepared to credit the fables 
which the sedition-mongers so sedulously spread abroad, 
to the effect that the Government they served and the 
officers who commanded them had entered into a 
deliberate conspiracy to undermine their religion." ^ 

After what has been stated in previous sections of this 
paper in respect to the pollution which a Hindu suffers 
from even involuntary contact with forbidden viands, it is 
unnecessary to enlarge upon the feelings of burning resent- 
ment and fanatical hatred which would be kindled in the 
breast of any Sepoy at finding that, by what would seem 
to him to be the deliberate act of the constituted authorities, 
he was being daily subjected to a process of defilement 
which, while degrading him in his own estmiation, rendered 
him unfit to hold personal intercourse even with his own 
kindred and friends in his native village, whence he had 
willingly come forth to fight for rulers who, without 
provocation on his part, treated him and his religious 

^ Lord Roberts, Forty-one Years in India, vol. i. pp. 431 and 432. 

91 



BRAHMANS, THEISTS, AND MUSLIMS OF INDIA 

scruples with immeasurable contempt. Who can wonder 
at the result ? 

The events just discussed show clearly that caste in India 
is a political force to be reckoned with ; but I would direct 
attention to the fact that the circumstances connected 
with the case of the greased cartridges are so very extra- 
ordinary and exceptional, that the recurrence of anything 
even remotely resembling them is highly improbable. The 
general effect of the caste system has been to subdivide 
the nation into so many distinct and independent, often 
antipathetic social groups, that vigorous and sustained 
combined action for any great common object has been 
rendered extremely difficult, except in the very rare cases 
where the caste system itself seemed to be endangered or 
caste feeling cruelly outraged. On the other hand, the 
pride and exclusiveness of caste — not dependent on wealth 
or worldly position, but on an inalienable birthright — may 
have kept the Hindus during many centuries of foreign 
dominion from sinking to the dead level of serfdom; and 
it is quite conceivable, indeed not at all improbable, that 
the various caste organisations controlled by recognised 
caste leaders may be employed most effectively for special 
political ends, especially as already certain important castes 
hold regular congresses and conferences of their own. 
Nevertheless it cannot be denied that living always within 
and for the caste, with little interest beyond it, has hitherto 
tended to circumscribe each Hindu's outlook to such a 
degree that the idea of nationality is not natural to his 
understanding nor the sentiment of patriotism to his heart. 

Mr. Oscar Browning, a cultured impressionist, " thinking 
imperially," says in a recent book : 

" My visit to India persuaded me to tolerate purdah 
and to have an admiration for caste, and I should be sorry 
to hear either of them had been overthrown." ^ 

Yes, and many another imperialist would, no doubt, be 
sorry to see the caste system die out in India, for such a 
change would inevitably add very considerably indeed to 
the task of governing and retaining England's immense 
Empire in the East. 

' Impressions of Indian Travel, p, 230. 
92 



CASTE IN INDIA 

Besides the political there are other aspects of the 
Hindu caste system which call for attention. Considered 
from the industrial point of view, the Indian trade castes, 
though differing in many respects from the trades guilds 
of mediaeval Europe, have played the part of such guilds 
in respect to the Indian handicrafts, and helped the pre- 
servation of ancient arts in no small degree, and to-day the 
value of the Indian caste as a co-operative society in full 
loorking order has been so far recognised that the official 
Eegistrar of Co-operative Credit Societies in the United 
Provinces recently suggested that the caste should be 
made the unit of co-operation.^ 

Viewed from the ethical standpoint, we are bound to 
allow that the organisation of the Hindu castes and sub- 
castes of closely allied family groups has proved an effective 
agency for the suppression of immorality and vice. That 
it has been very useful in the support and relief of the 
destitute poor is equally undeniable. In connection with 
this latter point I would make a passing reference to what 
was said, not long ago, by Mr. J. D. Eees at a meeting of 
the Society of Arts, to the effect that there was a larger 
proportion of people in receipt of relief at the expense of 
the State in England, in a normal year, than there was in 
India during the height of the (recent) famine.^ To obviate 
any misunderstanding of the significance of this statement, 
and to place it in its proper light, it should be added that 
there are no poor rates for the support of paupers in India. 
If such rates were available, I should not like to predict 
what the result would be. 

Turning to quite another aspect of the caste system, 
it may be noted that by it has been kept alive for ages 
the doctrine of the dignity of the hereditary priesthood, 
and incidentally of learning as represented by that privileged 
class. Caste, through its stubborn conservatism, has prob- 
ably been the most efficient practical means of safeguarding 
Hinduism and maintaining its principles, traditions, and 
customs against religious reformers within its own body, 
and also against the aggressions of alien religions, being, 

^ Agricultural Jouriml of India, No. 2, 1906. 
2 Journal of the Society of Arts, 3rd March 1905, 

93 



BRAHMANS, THEISTS, AND MUSLIMS OF INDIA 

as the Eev. Dr. John Wilson, of Bombay, wrote, " the grand 
obstacle to the triumph of the Gospel of Peace in India " ; 
because, as a recent writer quaintly puts it, the keen 
Hindu mind perceives that "Eedemption must mean loss 
of caste." ^ 

Consequently, and very naturally, the Hindu caste 
system has incurred the unqualified condemnation of 
Christian missionaries, and of all who are interested in the 
Christianisation of India. And, without doubt, the inter- 
relation between caste and the foundations of Hinduism 
is both intimate and peculiar. 

We may not know how or when certain hymns were 
written or incorporated with the sacred books of the Hindus, 
but it is none the less undeniable (vide page 50) that the 
advocates of the caste system can now appeal for support 
to the earliest of the Hindu Scriptures, the Vedas themselves, 
as regards the establishment of the four great varnas. Hence 
if the Vedas were to be given up, caste would lose its 
earliest recorded sanction; but who would expect the 
privileged hereditary castes to resign their advantages ? 
Therefore while these advantages are worth fighting for, 
the sanctity and authority of the Vedas and the Scriptures 
based upon them will be strenuously maintained. 

However, under the pressure of the new political 
and commercial conditions, a change is coming over the 
spirit of India. The worship of wealth is affecting the 
Indian in a striking degree. "It is depriving us," said a 
young Hindu to me, " of our Brahmans, who now rush into 
secular employment as the only means of obtaining the 
respect to which they have been accustomed." 

As the British Government has honours only for 
the well-to-do, a desire for the possession of wealth is 
assuming a larger and larger place in the Indian 
mind, although it is, I understand, still true that in 
Indian society at social gatherings members of the same 
caste sit together, high and low, rich and poor alike, 
without too invidious distinctions, and that an indigent 
member of the clan may still be handed the hookah from 

' Amy Wilson-Carniichael, Things as they are, : Mission Work in Southern 
India, p. 20. 

94 



CASTE IN INDIA 

the lips of the prosperous man. But it may be safely 
predicted that respect for poverty and Brahma Vidya 
amongst this people will rapidly disappear, as, stimulated 
by Western example, the worship of Mammon takes a 
stronger hold upon him. 

Amongst the forces inimical to caste at the present 
time are the railways, which under British management 
do not show any favour to that institution. Promiscuous 
travelling now prevails throughout the country, and, every 
day in the year, hundreds of thousands of twice-horns sit in 
contact with Sudras, outcasts, and Mlecchas on the levelling 
benches of the railway cars, conveniently closing their eyes 
to the terrible contamination which such contiguity involves, 
or else enduring as best they can the really considerable 
hardships to which they are exposed.^ Whether promiscuous 
railway travelling will in the long-run affect Hinduism itself 
we may well doubt, but it must lead to a relaxation or a 
more liberal interpretation of the stringent rules of the 
caste system as regards the specific issue of the con- 
taminating effect of contact with men of inferior castes, 
and non-Hindus. We may trust the astute Brahmans to 
find a way of reconciling convenience with duty in this 
matter. 

Like the railways, public hospitals and jails are institu- 
tions which, in their way, are inimical to the caste system, 
as within their walls the claims of caste are deliberately 
ignored, sometimes, I believe, more than ignored. In 
schools and colleges too, persons of all castes, except the 
lowest, and of different religions sit together in the same 
classrooms, join in the same games on the playground, and 
often reside in the boarding-houses attached to some of 
these seminaries. 

^ A couple of years ago at a public meeting, held in Bangalore, a Pandit 
of Benares discussed the inconveniences suffered by Brahmans while 
travelling on railways. The Pandit stated that the Brahman, unlike the 
other passengers, would not eat in cars or drink water when there were 
present men of other castes. Consequently the Brahman had to starve 
during the journey. The majority of the Brahmans travelled in third-class 
cars, and their condition was the more miserable as they had to mix with 
unclean people. What he wanted was the provision of sejiarate cars for the 
use of Brahman passengers, as had long been provided for Europeans and 
Eurasians travelling third class, 

95 



BRAHMANS, THEISTS, AND MUSLIMS OF INDIA 

There is in the Sepoy army a mingling of different castes, 
at any rate during the performance of military duties, and 
many minor prejudices no doubt get rubbed away by daily 
association with other than caste mates ; and the more so 
when, as comrades in arms, common dangers and death itself 
are faced by them together. 

Every year hundreds of Indian gentlemen visit Europe 
for purposes of study or mere pleasure, and in doing so 
wittingly transgress a well-established caste rule prohibiting 
Hindus from crossing the ocean or, indeed, any of the 
boundaries of India. While abroad these gentlemen fling 
to the winds many of the cherished prejudices of the caste 
system in which they have been reared, and although when 
they return home these samu-drayais, after purification, 
resume the obligations of the system, it can never be to 
them what it once was.^ If, however, in this connection 
I should be expected to state that with the spread of 
English education the caste system will disappear, I must 
say I am by no means prepared to go so far, for I have 
known many Indian gentlemen, highly educated and holding 
very good positions in State departments, who were in no- 
wise anxious to free themselves or their children from the 
restraints of the caste system, and it does not seem to me 
that education alone will effect the great things which are 
expected of it. 

Hindu Governments always did uphold caste distinctions 
and caste privileges, and when practicable they do so now, 
as in Nepal. But under British rule it is quite different, 
and able and worthy men of inferior caste rise to official 
positions in which they have men of higher castes under 
their orders. Such successful men, and their caste brethren 
also, naturally belittle the pretensions of the superior castes, 
and even scoff at the presumptuous claims of the Brahmans. 
I have myself known them to do so. 

Then the administration of justice in India under its 

^ Some of the more recent religious codes are very severe upon Hindus 
who cross the sea, "Caste communion it is maintained ... is not to be 
held with a person who has passed the sea in a ship, even though he may 
have performed penance for it, and, therefore, connection with such a person 
in this Vuga is reprehensible." — Dr. Wilson, Indian Caste, vol. i. pp. 
403 and 405. 

96 



CASTE IN INDIA 

British rulers, with its recognition of the rights of the 
individual irrespective of his caste or creed, may tend 
to weaken the caste sentiment by awakening aspirations 
amongst the inferior castes. 

In the Eoman Empire the law " did much negatively to 
break down the walls of separation between Greek and 
Barbarian, Jew and Gentile, patrician and plebeian, master 
and slave." ^ And there is not the slightest doubt that the 
pretensions of the superior castes will under the present 
rSgime be more and more discredited, and the artificial 
barriers between caste and caste get gradually demolished. 
Thus indirectly and unintentionally, but none the less 
surely, does British rule in India, by its discouragement of 
the caste system, foster the growth of the national sentiment 
amongst the people. 

Under the influence of the many causes I have alluded 
to, and no doubt many others which are less obvious, there 
has become apparent within the past twenty or thirty years 
a marked disesteem of the rigid caste system in India, at 
any rate in the ordinary talk of many educated Hindus. 
Contempt for an old-world system is too often in itself 
an indirect claim to enlightenment and emancipation from 
ignorant prejudices ; but, before allowing credit in this case 
for such enlightenment, it should be remembered that the 
contemners of the old system are frequently men of quite 
inferior caste, outside the pale of the twice-borns, and that 
there may possibly be some measure of truth in the state- 
ment made by Mr. Shoshee Chunder Dutt that a " love of 
food and drink proscribed by the Shastras and a morbid 
craving for promiscuous intercourse with females of all 
orders," are mainly responsible for the hostility to the 
caste system prevailing at the present time. 

If we regard the caste system from the point of view 
of the still influential Brahmans, it is evident that with 
individual exceptions they will very naturally cling all the 
more, with outraged pride, to the hereditary importance 
derivable from their dominant and enviable place in that 
ancient time-honoured institution of their native land, 
and the end of the contest between the old forces 

^ Caird, The Evolution of Religion, vol. i. p. 1 5. 

G 97 



BRAHMANS, THEISTS, AND MUSLIMS OF INDIA 

and the new is not yet, and certainly not within 
sight. 

But though the system may not be obsolescent, it is, 
as I have explained, being assailed at the present time by 
so many disintegrating forces, that changes are inevitable, 
and, in my opinion, many concessions for facilitating social 
intercourse between the different castes and even between 
Hindus and non-Hindus may be looked for, even in the near 
future ; but, on the other hand, the recognised time-honoured 
limitations with respect to the sphere within which marriage 
may be contracted — that most essential feature of Indian 
caste — will, I think, be more enduring and prove, for a long 
time to come, almost unassailable by either progressives or 
reformers. 



98 



T/-\E1I5M 

IN 




CHAPTER III 

THEISM IN 
BENGAL 

Section I. — Ram 
Mohun Roy, the 
Bengali Theistic 
Reformer — His life 
and work. 

t'ROM. the long 
and often em- 
bittered conflict 
of world-religions 
in India, many 
diverse sects have 
arisen, especially 
out of Hinduism. 
Vigorously as- 
sailed as that 
ancient faith has 
been for centuries 
by the forces of 
Islam and Chris- 
tianity, represent- 
ing in both cases 
the religions of 
powerful domin- 
ant nationalities, 
it has responded 
to the aggressive 
forces confronting 
it by repeated 
outbursts of 
religious enthusi- 
asm within its 



BRAHMANS, THEISTS, AND MUSLIMS OF INDIA 

own borders, conducted by Hindu reformers of many 
types. 

Of the sects which this war of creeds has called into 
being in the fertile religious soil of Hindu India, the Brahma 
Samaj (written also Brahmo Samaj and Brahmo Somaj) is 
one which will repay study, for its history reveals the 
influence of both Islam and Christianity, and its develop- 
ment the salient mental and moral characteristics of the 
keen-witted, highly emotional Mongolo-Dra vidian stock to 
which the Bengali race belongs. Indeed, the Brahma or 
Brahmo movement displays in a high degree the preponder- 
ating influence of racial psychology on national faiths, and 
is for this, as well as other reasons, deserving of the atten- 
tion of thoughtful men. 

At the present time the Brahma sect, consisting of three 
distinct sections, is a purely theistic one, without any sacred 
book to appeal to and without any miraculous legend as 
evidence of the truth of its faith, or of the doctrines it 
professes. But it was not always so. During the seventy- 
five years of its existence the sect has gradually undergone 
a progressive development, passing from a purified form of 
Hinduism to its present independent position. In the year 
1774, while Warren Hastings was still pursuing his am- 
bitious projects of empire in India, Eam Mohun Eoy, the 
original founder of the sect, was born in the quiet little 
village of Eadhanagar, in Bengal, some fifty miles from 
Calcutta.^ His parents were high caste, and thoroughly 
orthodox Brahmans in easy circumstances. In his birth- 
place Eam Mohun received the ordinary village-school 
education of the day in his mother tongue, after which he 
was put to study Persian, at that time the language of all 
the civil and criminal courts of the country. He also took 
up Arabic. His progress in all branches of study was very 
rapid, but to ensure a more complete and thorough mastery 
of the Persian and Arabic languages, the boy was, at the 
age of twelve years, sent to Patna to continue his education 
under the erudite Moulvis at that seat of Muhammadan 
learning. His studies at Patna opened up to the inquiring 
mind of Eam Mohun Eoy the theology and philosophy of 
^ G. S. Leonard, History of the Brahma Saviaj. 
100 



THEISM IN BENGAL 

the Mussulmans. The young student took advantage, with 
passionate eagerness, of every source of knowledge within 
his reach. He anxiously weighed and considered the con- 
flicting opinions which came under his notice, and, while 
still a mere lad, was powerfully attracted towards the Sufi ^ 
philosophy and monotheistic doctrines, without, however, 
being led at any time to adopt the Muhammadan religion, 
against which he wrote in later life, objecting strongly to 
the anthropomorphic conception of God which the Koran 
encouraged. To counteract the tendency of these studies 
his parents sent him to Benares, to learn from orthodox 
Hindu teachers the sacred literature of their Sanskrit 
ancestors. But Ram Mohun Eoy was already too strongly 
tinctured with monotheistic sentiments to be won back to 
idolatry and the gross Puranic faith of his parents. How- 
ever, in the Vedanta Philosophy ^ of the Hindus he found, 
or thought he found, a confirmation of the conclusions he 
had already reached ; and at the early age of sixteen he 
wrote, but did not publish, a paper against the idolatrous 
practices of Hinduism, 

The hostile attitude he had taken up towards his 
ancestral religion, and the very decided opinions he had 
formed, made his position under the parental roof anything 
but comfortable, and with the consent of his parents, he set 
out on a course of travels and visited many parts of India. 
Most Indian religious reformers travel extensively, studying 
the local languages, and paying special attention to the 
religious tenets and practices of the people. Ptam Mohun 
Eoy even, it is said, adventurously crossed the Himalayas 
and visited Tibet to study the Buddhist religion as 
actually existing in that country. In his twentieth, some 
say twenty-second, year, he commenced to learn English, 
and in time acquired a good knowledge of that language. 
When about twenty-eight or twenty-nine years of age, he 
published, in Persian, a book in which, while denouncing 

^ Sufi Philosophy. This system, which is but a Muslim adaptation of 
the Vedanta school of Hindu philosophy (Hughes, Dictionary of Islam, 
Art. "Sufi ") is one that naturally commends itself to the Indian mind. 

" Vedanta Philosophy. One of the orthodox systems of Hindu philo- 
sophy, which may be styled Hindu Pantheism. 

lOI 



BRAHMANS, THEISTS, AND MUSLIMS OF INDIA 

polytheism and idolatry, he also boldly objected to the 
doctrines of incarnation and revelation. Shortly after 
the publication of this work, Earn Mohun Eoy, in 1803, 
entered the service of the British Government as a sub- 
ordinate Eevenue official, and in ten years " acquired as 
much money as enabled him to become a Zemindar,^ with 
an income of ten thousand rupees (equivalent in those 
days to at least £1000) a year."^ How this money was 
obtained cannot now be known, but its acquisition enabled 
him, in the fortieth year of his age, to give up the public 
service, purchase a residence for himself at Calcutta, and 
settle there in 1814. His easy leisure appears to have 
been devoted to religious studies, to discussions and con- 
troversies with Hindus, Muhammadans, and Christians, and 
in agitating for various social reforms, for instance the 
abolition of Sati.^ 

Two years after settling in Calcutta he published in 
English A Translation of the Abridgment of the Vcdant or 
Resolution of all the Veds. After a diligent study of the 
Bible, he brought out in 1819 a book entitled The Precepts of 
Jesus, the Guide to Peace and Happiness. Although this 
work was eminently appreciative of the character and 
teaching of Christ, it gave rise to an attack from the 
missionaries of Serampore, and a controversy followed, in 
the course of which Eam Mohun Eoy studied Greek and 
Hebrew, the better to stand his ground against his assailants. 
Strange to say, he so far converted his tutor Mr. Adam 
(himself a missionary) to his own way of thinking, that that 
gentleman relinquished his spiritual office, became editor of 
the Indian Gazette, and was generally known in Calcutta as 
" the second fallen Adam." * 

This occurred in 1828. Eam Mohun's controversy with 

^ Landed proprietor. 

^ A History of the Bralima Samaj, by G. S. Leonard, p. 20. 

3 Whatever credit may be due to Ram Moluin Eoy for his efforts to have 
the rite of Sati abolished, it must be remembered that in his crusade against 
this cruel practice he could count upon the moral support of every English- 
man in India, and that the matter had been officially considered by the 
Marquis of Wellesley in 1807. (See Dr. George' Smith, Life of William 
Carey, pp. 279-285.) 

* Dr. George Smith, Life of Dr. Alexander Duff, vol. i. p. 118. 

102 



THEISM IN BENGAL 

the advocates of Christianity has its own peculiar features. 
Unable to deny the shortcomings of Hinduism, as based 
upon the modern text-books of that faith, he took refuge in 
the mysterious Vedas, works venerable by their antiquity, 
and as yet jealously guarded from the contamination of 
European eye or hand; but there is reason to believe that 
the Hindu controversialist was himself but little, if at all, 
acquainted with these writings of a very remote past. On 
this point we have the opinion of Professor Max Miiller, 
who says : 

" Now it may sound strange, but I feel convinced that 
Eam Mohun Koy himself, when, in his controversies 
with his English friends, he fortified himself behind the 
rampart of the Veda, had no idea of what the Veda 
really was." 

And again : 

" When Eam Mohun Eoy speaks of the Vedas, and 
of the Monotheism taught by them, he almost invari- 
ably means the Upanishads not the Brahmanas, not the 
mantras or hymns of the Veda. Both the Brahmanas 
and the hymns teach a polytheistic, or, more accurately, 
a henotheistic, but not a monotheistic religion; yet 
they form the great bulk of what is called Veda, while 
the Upanishads form only a kind of appendix." ^ 

Such tactics, although unfortunately too common 
amongst polemical writers, can only by a misuse of language 
be held to consist with an honest seeking after truth. 

The fourteen years that had elapsed since Eam Mohun 
Eoy settled in Calcutta, had been fruitful in events calculated 
to produce a lasting impression on the ideas of the people 
of India. Not the least of these was the establishment of 
the Hindu College, in January 1817. Much good work had 
been done in that institution in bringing the native mind 
into contact with the treasures of European literature; 
but very stirring times in the intellectual world of native 
society in Calcutta were at hand. In March 1828, Mr. 
H. L. V. Derozio joined the teaching staff of the Hindu 
College, and under the bold guidance of this youthful 
Eurasian professor, a man of some genius, and a free-thinker, 

^ Professor Max Miiller, Biograpldcal Essays — "Ram Molinn Roy." 

103 



BRAHMANS, THEISTS, AND MUSLIMS OF INDIA 

an enthusiasm of inquhy had been raised which has 
seldom been equalled. Keen and eager students flocked 
round the young master, and unsatisfied with the ordinary 
hours of study, and the instruction of the classroom, 
followed him to his home, there to renew the discussions, 
and to probe to their depths the most cherished dogmas of 
philosophy and religion.^ 

The natural result of these full and free inquiries, 
conducted no doubt with more zeal than judgment, was a 
widespread scepticism amongst the Hindu students, who 
carried their new ideas into the family circle. " The 
convulsion," says a Bengali writer, " caused by Derozio was 
great. It pervaded almost the house of every advanced 
student. Down with Hinduism ! Down with orthodoxy ! 
was the cry everywhere." ^ 

This open and aggressive scepticism of the rising 
generation created a panic in the heart of orthodox Hindu 
society, which rose up against the new ideas, and suc- 
ceeded eventually in getting Derozio removed from his 
place in the College. But an important work had already 
been accomplished. The vast region of European specula- 
tion in metaphysics and ethics had been opened out to 
the Calcutta students by Derozio in a manner which probably 
no other Professor of Philosophy in an Indian College 
would have done, and a shock was given to Hinduism in 
Bengal, the effects of which were apparent on all sides. 

Profiting by the disintegrating labours of Mr. Derozio, 
Dr. Alexander Duff, the enthusiastic Scotch missionary, 
made a vigorous, well-timed effort at proselytising. Offering, 
with persuasive eloquence, to the young sceptics of the 
Hindu College a refuge from their doubts in the bosom of 
Christianity, he succeeded in attracting into the Christian 
fold a few of those to whom the condition of doubt was 
intolerable, or who had already irretrievably compromised 
themselves, and been expelled from Hindu society.^ 

^ Mr. Derozio's connection with the Hindu College lasted from March 
1828 to April 1831. 

2 Peary Chand Mittra, A Biogj-ajjJiical Sketch of David Hare, 
p. 16. 

^ Between August 1832 and April 1833, DufF made four converts to 
Christianity. 

104 



THEISM IN BENGAL 

At this time also the great political questions which 
arose out of the storm of discussions and controversies on 
the Eeform Bill began to teach the mild Hindu the " rights 
of man." This awakening of the Eastern mind, under the 
stimulating influence of occidental ideas, marks an epoch in 
the intellectual history of India, a renaissance destined to 
lead to the most important consequences, of which as yet 
only the beginnings are apparent. 

During the period of speculative fermentation of which 
we have been writing, Eam Mohun Eoy, assisted by a few 
friends and disciples, founded the Brahma Samaj or Society 
of God. A suitable house of prayer was opened in 1830, 
designed for congregational worship, itself an important 
innovation upon Hindu customs in religion. The service 
in the new theistic church consisted in the recital of the 
Vedas by two Telegu Brahmans,^ the reading of texts from 
the Upanishads, and the expounding of the same in 
Bengali. The Samaj, thus constituted, looked for its 
sanctions to certain Hindu Scriptures of great antiquity 
and acknowledged authority, and it was at this time 
practically, although an unorthodox, still a Hindu sect, true 
to the all-important institution of caste. Indeed, in 
establishing this sect Eam Mohun Eoy professed to be 
leading his countrymen back to the pure, uncorrupted 
monotheistic religion of their Vedic ancestors; but his 
monotheism, based as it was essentially upon the Vedanta 
philosophy, was in reality but a disguised Pantheism, 
enriched as regards its ethics by ideas derived from Muslim 
and Christian literature and theology. 

At about this period the French travelling naturalist, 
M. Victor Jacquemont, made the acquaintance of Eam 
Mohun Eoy at Calcutta, and he devotes several pages of 
his book of travels in India to an appreciative account of 
the reformer's history, acquirements, and character. As 
M. Jacquemont was received on intimate terms into the 
very best Anglo-Indian society, his opinions naturally 
reflect the opinions of his hosts, and are strong evidence of 

^ Telegu or Madras! Brahraans were employed because there are no 
pure Brahmaus in Bengal to whom the sacred task could properly be 
entrusted. 

105 



BRAHMANS, THEISTS, AND MUSLIMS OF INDIA 

the high esteem in which Earn Mohun Eoy was held by 
his English contemporaries in India. With regard to his 
private life, our French traveller says that he dispensed in 
charities the whole of the fortune which he had inherited 
from his father, living himself with the strictest economy 
in order that he might have the more to give away.^ 

On the other hand, the impression produced on the 
famous French missionary, the Abbe J. A. Dubois, by Eam 
Mohun Eoy was not at all favourable. He formed no high 
opinion either of his learning or his originality, considered 
that the reformer's talents were much overrated, and derided 
his efforts to bring back his countrymen to the religion of 
their ancestors. Especially objectionable did Eam Mohun 
Eoy appear to M. Dubois when, at an entertainment given 
by the reformer to the Spaniards living in Calcutta, he 
made an elaborate speech, with reference to the recent 
revolution in Spain, on the advantages of religious and 
political freedom. " In fact," says the French missionary, 
" to see a Brahmin decorated with the treble cord, that 
indubitable badge of the most oppressive and most 
degrading despotism, turn the apostle of freedom, is so 
shocking an anomaly, that persons acquainted with the 
subject will find it difficult to reconcile themselves to such 
a contradiction." ^ But this harsh and not quite reasonable 
criticism on the part of the good Abbe — usually so very 
fair minded — may well be attributed to the odium 
theologicum aroused in the militant French hierophant 
by the sight of a hated priestly opponent commanding 
public attention and receiving, as in this case, respectful 
hearing even from Europeans. 

In 1830 the titular Emperor of Delhi, himself a Muslim, 
conferred the title of Bajah upon the Bengali reformer, and 
induced him to proceed to England on a mission to the 
Home Government, deeming, in all probability, that the 
high estimation in which Eam Mohun Eoy was held by 
Anglo-Indians marked him out as the fittest advocate of 
his cause in England. 

Of distinguished appearance, agreeable manners, and 

^ Victor Jacquemont, Voyage dans VInde, tome premier, pp. 183-188. 
"^ Letters on the State of Christianity in India, pp. 165, 166. 

io6 



THEISM IN BENGAL 

undoubtedly great ability, the envoy from the Mogul court, 
" the first Brahman who had ever crossed the sea," ^ was 
everywhere warmly welcomed in England, and the more 
cordially, perhaps, because, from his professed admiration of 
Christ and His teaching, it was felt that he was one almost 
persuaded to become a Christian. But Earn Mohun Eoy, 
who has been described by Professor Sir Monier Williams 
" as the first earnest-minded investigator of the science of 
comparative religion that the world has produced," ^ had 
done more than look into the various religions which 
claim the allegiance and sustain the hopes of men, and 
was by no means a likely convert. 

It is one thing to avow admiration of the exalted 
character and teaching of Christ, it is quite another thing 
to subscribe to the dogmas of a particulai^ Christian Church, 
undergo haptism in order to he received therein, formally 
renounce one's old faith, and incur all the social penalties 
of apostasy. And this unqualified acceptance of specific 
dogmas, together with the public and complete repudiation 
of one's national religion, is what the conversion of a Hindu 
or a Muslim to Christianity actually involves. 

Without questioning for a moment the genuineness 
and sincerity of the estimation in which the Bengali 
reformer might hold the pure and elevated teaching of 
Christ, it is probable that in their eager desire to regard 
him as a Christian in all but open profession of faith, his 
kind hosts attached more importance to his words than 
they really deserved. Be this as it may, Eam Mohun Eoy 
.never embraced the Christian religion, but died in England 
in 1833, a Hindu to the last, clinging tenaciously to all 

' "The immense difBculty of the enterprise at that period is proved by 
the fact that we do not hear of any other Hindoo of high caste visiting this 
country since the death of Ram Mohun Roy until in 1841 or 1842 his friend 
Dwarkanath Tagore came to England, and in 1845 four native Indian 
medical sti;dents, accompanied hither Dr. Henry Goodeve, the founder of 
the Medical College in Calcutta." — Mary Carpenter, The Last Days in 
England of the Rajah Ram Mohun Roy, p. 67. 

Needless to add that hundreds of Indians are now studying in Britain, 
and that many thousands of Indians of all ranks, castes, and creeds have 
visited England within the last seventy years. 

"^ Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, January 1881. Art. " Indian 
Theistic Reforms." 

107 



BRAHMANS, THEISTS, AND MUSLIMS OF INDIA 

the observances and restrictions of his caste. The Eajah 
was buiied in Bristol, and a monument erected by his 
friend and disciple Dwarkanath Tagore marks his last 
resting-place in Arno's Vale Cemetery. 

Earn Mohun Eoy was a keen-witted man of high 
capacity, whose studies had satisfied him that the orthodox 
Hindu system was not without defects. In this he was 
not singular. Eeformers hke Kabir and Xanak had lived 
and taught before his days, but Eam Mohun Eoy's work was 
done in the broad light of the nineteenth century, and much 
of it in such a fashion as to attract the attention, sympathy, 
and countenance of Europeans. Throughout his career, 
though at one time subjected to much social j)ersecution, 
the reformer seems to have managed to steer a safe and 
tolerably comfortable course. Although he had written 
against Muhammadanism, he was selected as the envoy of 
the Mogul Emperor to England ; although he carried on 
a controversy with the Serampore missionaries, he seems 
to have won the confidence of Chiristians, for we learn that 
the first person the Scotch missionary Alexander Duff was, 
on his arrival at Calcutta, advised to consult about his 
mission, was no other than Eam Mohun Eoy: while by 
his strict adherence to caste rules, and the obligatory 
ceremonies of Hinduism, he fully maintained his claim to 
be regarded as a Hindu to the end of his life. In all 
things he was a shrewd man of the world. His clear 
intellect could see that reforms were urgently called for 
in the Hindu religion and society, and he worked towards 
the desired end, without exposing himself to very serious 
risks or inconvenience. He took a prominent part in 
agitating for the suppression of Sati, and strongly advocated 
a practical scientific education for his countrymen, instead 
of the traditional Sanskrit learning, which he, in the fulness 
of knowledge, held in no great esteem.^ On the whole, 
Eam Mohun Eoy was a man of conspicuous ability and 
much tact, with a rare liberality of sentiment and a 
practical turn of mind. As the first Indian reformer 
whose writing^s reflect the Cliristian influence introduced 
from the "West, he has naturally been dealt with in a kindly 

^ Peary Cliand Mittra, Biography of David Rare. 
1 08 



THEISM IN BENGAL 

and appreciative spirit by European writers, and has 
perhaps been exalted by some of them into a position 
beyond his deserts. In estimating the originality and 
liberality of his views, it has to be borne in mind that 
some of his proposed social reforms, for example the pre- 
vention of Sati, were probably suggested by his European 
friends in high position, and that his religious views may 
have owed their catholicity to the genius of Hinduism, 
strengthened perhaps by his familiarity with the ideas of 
the French and English sceptics of the eighteenth century, 
and their successors. 



109 




THEISM IN BEl^GAL— continued 

Section II. — Debendra Natli Tagore and the Adi Brahma Samaj — 
The first important schism led by Keshub Chunder Sen, 

AM MOHUN EOY died in debt, and after his 
demise the Brahma Samaj languished, its money- 
capital amounting to only six thousand and 
eighty rupees. 

This amount was clearly inadequate to the 
support of the institution, and it owed to the 
liberality of a single man, Dwarkanath Tagore, the pay- 
ment of its very moderate monthly expenses of some 
eighty rupees. By 1841, after an existence of eleven 
years, the Brahma Society could not count more than five 
or six persons who cared to attend the religious services 
at the Mandir (place of worship), and there was but one 
regular attendant, a relative of the gentleman by whom 
the ^IsuCQ w^as kept up. In this moribund condition, 
the Samaj was taken in hand by Debendra Nath Tagore, 
a son of Dwarkanath, and by his devotion, energy, and 
ability, some new life was infused into the almost ex- 
tinct Society. In 1843, Debendra Nath instituted a form 
of initiation into the Society which involved the signing 
of a covenant by the initiate, affirming his adoption of 
the Vedantic faith, and renunciation of idolatry. At 
that time the Samaj could number only eighty-three 
members. By Debendra Nath's zeal, branches were estab- 
lished in many of the towns and villages of Bengal. 
Up to this time the Brahma Samaj professed to derive 
its doctrines, and to rely for its sanctions upon the 
Vedas. But, as subsequent events proved, a pure theistic 
church could not be firmly built upon such foundations. 

no 



THEISM IN BENGAL 

Opposition and criticism awakened honest inquiry and 
investigation. Four learned Pandits were sent in 1845 to 
Benares at Debendra Nath's expense, to copy out and make 
a special study of the Vedas, After two years they re- 
turned to Calcutta. Debendra Nath devoted himself, with 
their aid, to a diligent and critical examination of the 
sacred books, and eventually, after much controversy, and 
even danger of disruption, the Samaj came, under his 
guidance, to the important decision that the teaching of 
the Vedas could not be reconciled with the conclusions of 
modern science, or with the religious convictions of the 
Brahmas,^ a result which soon led to an open and public 
denial of the infallibility of the Vedas. There is nothing 
in the Brahmic movement more creditable to the parties 
concerned than this honest and careful inquiry into the 
nature of the doctrines and precepts of the Vedas. 

The conclusion arrived at was a momentous one in the 
history of the Society, for at a later period it led, and 
necessarily so, to a complete and uncompromising rupture 
with Hinduism on the part of all those who were prepared 
to follow to their logical consequences the principles which 
they publicly professed. The sect now fell back upon 
Natural Eeligion, but, needing some sort of text-book 
explanatory of their creed and practices, one was com- 
piled in 1848 by Debendra Nath himself, entitled Brahma 
Dharma Ghrantha, a collection " of Theistic Texts con- 
taining selections from the Shastras and the Shastras 
only " ; that is from such of the old oracles of the Hindu 
faith as the Upanishads, Manu, the Mahabharata, and the 
like. A Bengali translation of the selected texts, and a 
commentary thereon, formed an essential part of this book. 
Having given up the infallibility of even the most sacred 
of all the Hindu Scriptures, the Vedas, it is clear that a 
few passages culled from later sacred books of the Hindus, 
in support of a particular doctrine, could not be, in any 
sense, authoritative ; but the leaders of the Society appear 
to have held that its theism, though founded on intuition 
and reason, was still in consonance with the highest teach- 

^ Pandit Sivanath Sastri, M.A., The New DisjJensation, p. 6. T. E. 
Slater, Keshab Chandra Sen, p. 36. 

Ill 



BRAHMANS, THEISTS, AND MUSLIMS OF INDIA 

ings of Hinduism, and they desired to emphasise this 
opinion, and keep it before the minds of their country- 
men. 

At this time the creed of the Brahmas was embodied in 
the following four articles : — 

"(1) One only God before this was, and nothing 
else was co-existent with him. He has created what- 
ever there exists. 

" (2) He is eternal, intelligence itself, infinite, all- 
good, ail-apart, without parts, one, without a second, 
all-pervading, governing and supporting everything, 
omniscient, omnipotent, perfect, immutable, without a 
likeness. 

"(3) His worship alone ensures all present and 
future bliss. 

" (4) Love of him, and doing the works he loves, is 
his worship." ^ 

Here I may call attention to the fact that in these 
articles of faith, no reference is made to the doctrines of 
successive reincarnations and of Karma, so characteristic of 
Hinduism in its subtler aspects. 

Henceforward the apostles of the Brahma Samaj openly 
taught that they had no written scriptures, but based the 
doctrines of their faith upon the laws of nature, and the 
primitive convictions implanted in the mind of man. 

With all their outward j)i'ofession of austere mono- 
theistic doctrines, it appears that, at this time, the Brahmas 
in their domestic life differed little, if at all, from their 
idolatrous countrymen. 

To avow a theoretical belief in the unity of God, and 
to pass a sweeping condemnation upon idolatry of every 
kind, was far easier than to avoid participating in idolatrous 
practices, interwoven as these were with every ceremony 
. and detail of public and private life. It was clear that if 
the new ideas were really to bear fruit, vigorous action was 
necessary in lieu of dreamy speculation. Zealous young 
reformers desired the total suppression of all idolatrous 
rites. To reconcile their conduct with their creed in the 
matter of religious ceremonies, without unnecessary innova- 

^ G. S. Leonard, A History of the Brahma Samaj, p. 91. 
112 



THEISM IN BENGAL 

tion, was a delicate matter, but had to be attempted if the 
sect was not to become a byword. Under the stimulus of 
pressing necessity, rules for the conduct of all the principal 
ceremonies were at length drawn up for the guidance of 
Brahmas, retaining as much as possible of the time- 
honoured usages and practices of Hinduism, and Debendra 
Nath himself was the first to set the example of performing 
a Hindu rite without any proceedings savouring of idolatry. 
But these concessions were not sufficient for the extreme 
radical party in the new sect. The more conservative 
members still clung to Hinduism, and regarded themselves 
as Hindu reformers, while the progressive Brahmas, as they 
styled themselves, were minded to go a good deal further. 
That party was prepared to break altogether with Hinduism. 
It was determined to abolish the use of sect marks, to allow 
marriage between members of different castes, and it was 
ready to welcome into its ranks converts from every caste 
and creed. The conservatives were led by Debendra Nath 
Tagore, a man learned in the Shastras and Sanskrit litera- 
ture, averse to Christianity, and deeply tinctured with the 
Sufi-ism of the Persians. 

The radicals were headed by a young man of the Vaidya 
caste, named Keshub Chunder Sen, who had joined the 
Samaj in 1859 and been appointed a minister by Debendra 
Nath Tagore in 1862. Educated in the Presidency College 
at Calcutta, more familiar with English and the Bible than 
with the Sanskrit language and Yedic literature, he was 
filled with deep enthusiastic admiration of the beauty of 
Christ's character and teaching. A schism in the Society 
was an unavoidable consequence of these differences of 
opinion. Under the energetic leadership of Babu Keshub 
Chunder Sen, the progressive party seceded from the original 
Society, and set up a Samaj of their own, which was publicly 
established in November 1866. 

With the secession of Keshub Chunder Sen and his 
followers a complete and permanent separation was effected 
between the conservative and progressive parties in the 
Samaj, which owed its origin to Piam Mohun Eoy. Each 
went its own way, the former being henceforth known as 
the Adi (original) Brahma Samaj, while the latter assumed 

H 113 



BRAHMANS, THEISTS, AND MUSLIMS OF INDIA 

the somewhat pretentious title of " the Brahma Samaj of 
India." 

Before dealing with Keshub's very conspicuous and 
somewhat erratic career, I may devote a couple of pages 
to the interesting, though uneventful, story of the Adi 
Samaj. 

Under the guidance of its founder Debendra Nath 
Tagore, who was born in 1818 and died so recently as 
January 1905, the Adi Brahma Samaj has continued to 
uphold theism as a cult in harmony with the national 
religion. It professes indeed to be a Hindu sect whose 
special mission is to abolish idolatry and propagate theism. 
To the Hindu caste system the Adi Samaj maintains an 
attitude of toleration, trusting that reforms in respect to 
this matter will, in course of time, follow the full acceptance 
of its fundamental principles. Debendra Nath — who has 
been succeeded as chief minister of the sect by his eldest 
son Babu Dwijindra Nath Tagore — was a man of great 
ability, a fine orator, a careful man of business, a wise 
father, a man of scrupulous integrity,^ and eminently 
religious from quite youthful days. In his old age Debendra 
Nath Tagore led the life of a recluse. To a spot, situated 
about a mile from the Bolpur station of the East Indian 
Railway, now known as the shantiniketan of Bolpur, 
Debendra Nath was wont to retreat in order to hold coth- 
munion with God, in other words to ^'''^^actise Yoga. He 
used to pitch a tent there and give himself up to religious 
meditation in the shade of a particular tree. Eventually 
he secured about six and a half acres of land, built a dwelling- 
house on it, and, later on, a chapel and a Brahmavidyala or 
school. 

" The sanctuary or chapel is a marvellous edifice," 
says a pious Bengali pilgrim. " The roof is tiled, but 
the enclosure is of glass, some of which are painted 
and some coloured. The Crystal Palace, London, is a 
glass house. We have not heard of any other house 
besides it made of glass. Although in magnitude the 
shantiniketan sanctuary cannot be compared with the 

^ C. E. Buckland, CLE., Bengal under its Lieutenant-Cfovernors, vol. ii. 
pp. 1035-37. 

114 



THEISM IN BENGAL 

famous Crystal Palace, it gives the people some idea 
as to what sort of edifice the latter is. It undoubtedly 
is an attraction to the villagers, who come to see it in 
large numbers. This glass hall is about 60 feet long 
and about 30 feet broad. The pavement is of white 
marble. There are suitable inscriptions in it in Sanskrit. 
It has four gates from four sides of the garden. Towards 
the eastern gate, there is a beautiful portico with a 
tower over it, and the word OM in Bengali, like the 
figure of the cross in Christian churches, flourishes 
over the topmost pinnacle. Suitable inscriptions, both 
in Sanskrit and Bengali, are inscribed on beautiful 
pedestals for flower vases, and placed at the approach 
to the holy place. There is a beautiful artificial foun- 
tain, which plays on special occasions, and on the two 
pillars near it are stuck two large pieces of marble, the 
one bearing an inscription in Sanskrit and the other 
in Bengali, describing the blessedness of heaven — of 
which the place assuredly is the foreshadow." ^ 

In the chapel described as above by a devout Bengali 
admirer, religious services are held regularly twice a day, 
in accordance with the liturgy of the Adi Brahma Samaj, 
by a Brahman appointed for the purpose. Within the 
precincts of the shantiniketan animal food is interdicted. 
There is a holy of holies in the sanctuary, the spot where 
Debendra ISTath used to practise Yoga under a great chittim 
tree. Here stands a small elevated seat made of white 
marble — the Vedi — upon which, lost in contemplation, the 
minister used to hold communion with God. The Vedi is 
deemed so sacred that no one but the Master has ever 
presumed to occupy it. The chittim tree at Bolpur is in 
the belief of Debendra Nath's followers destined to become 
in after years as famous as the Bodhi tree at Buddh Gaya, 
which some four-and-twenty centuries ago witnessed Gau- 
tama's great temptation and his final triumph over Mara 
the Evil One. 

By his disciples Debendra ISTath was styled Maharshi — 
grand Kishi or Saint — and he was highly esteemed by all 
classes in Bengal. The ceremony of the Cremation of the 
Maharshi's body at the Nimtollah Burning Ghat was the 

^ From Unily and the Minister, 13th October 1901, reproduced in 
Tattwabodhini Patrika, vol. xv. part iii. 

IIS 



^RAHMANS, TtiEIStS, ANt) MUSLIMS OF INDIA 

occasion of an unprecedented display of sympathy and 
respect on the part of his countrymen of all denominations. 
Yet the sect which Debendra Nath Tagore founded, and 
practically maintained at his own expense, is still numerically 
insignificant. According to information received by me in 
July 1905 from a Bengali gentleman (Babu Jogindra Nath 
Bose) interested in the Samaj, the entire sect numbered 
only " three hundred people, men, women and children 
all told." 



116 




THEISM IN B'E'NGAL—co'Jitinued 

Section III. — Early troubles of the "Brahma Samaj of India;" — Act 
passed by Goverimient to legalise Brahma marriages. 

pHE leader of the progressive party, Babu 
Keshub Chunder Sen, who was only twenty- 
eight years of age, had shown a strong passion 
for the stage, and loved nothing better than 
the plays of Shakespeare. He was fond of 
performing himself, and especially delighted 
in appearing in the role of magician before his family and 
friends. One of his biographers even gives him the credit 
of having revived dramatic performances in Bengal.^ 

At an early age he studied the Bible with the Eev. T. H. 
Burne, domestic chaplain to Bishop Cotton, and imbibed 
ideas and feelings which made a lasting impression on his 
mind.2 Although decidedly clever and self-reliant, Keshub 
does not appear to have made a figure either at school or 
college, probably on account of his distaste for mathematical 
studies, and his irrepressible individuality. At the age of 
twenty-one he began life as a clerk on a small salary in the 
Bank of Bengal. Endowed with an emotional temperament, 
earnest piety, a very ambitious spirit, unusual energy, a 
gift of ready speech, and a strong leaven of vanity, Keshub 
Chunder Sen found the sober, monotonous duties of a bank 
clerk intolerable, and very soon sought a more congenial 
field for the exercise of his abilities. The reform movement 
set on foot by Earn Mohun Eoy attracted his attention, 

^ A Biographical Sketch of Keshub Chunder Sen, printed at the Vedanta 
Press, Calcutta, 1884. This sketch was written by an ardent admirer of 
the reformer, and one apparently well acquainted with him and his family. 

2 Jde7n, p. 7. 

U7 



BRAHMANS, THEISTS, AND MUSLIMS OF INDIA 

and, as already stated, he formally joined the Brahma Samaj 
in 1859. He was now in his proper element, and, as we 
have seen, became before long an acknowledged leader in 
the Society, 

At the inaugural meeting of the new Brahma Samaj 
of India, of which Keshub was the founder, texts from the 
sacred Scriptures of the Christians, Hindus, Muhammadans, 
Parsees, and Chinese were publicly read, in order to mark, 
and to proclaim to the world, the catholicity of spirit in 
which the new sect was formed. And thus the Brahmas, 
although denying the inspiration of any of the writings 
held sacred by the professors of existing creeds, still use 
them as a common storehouse from which to borrow what- 
ever seems most suitable to point a moral, to strengthen 
an argument, or to support a thesis. And the same sermon 
or lecture may bristle with quotations from the Eamayana, 
the Koran, and the Bible, all brought forward with curious 
impartiality, and referred to with equal veneration. 

From the time of his secession from the parent Society, 
Keshub by his writings and public lectures kept himself 
prominently before the Indian world, enlisting the sympathies 
of the Viceroy, Sir John Lawrence, who took a deep interest 
in the work of the native reformer, particularly as Keshub 
had spoken publicly of Christ in terms w^hich seemed to 
justify the belief that he was a Christian in all but open 
profession of faith. 

In 1868, Keshub visited Simla in order to have an 
interview with the Viceroy, and there, for the first time, 
I heard him deliver to an appreciative audience one of his 
popular lectures, displaying much showy eloquence and 
emotional fervour. 

By this time several marriages had been performed 
according to the revised ritual of the Brahmic Church. 
They had given great offence to orthodox Hindus, and had 
exposed the participators in these novel rites to much 
obloquy. The legality of marriages thus contracted had 
even been questioned. 

This was an important epoch in the history of the sect. 
Here was a real stumbling-block in the way of the propa- 
gation of Brahmaism. If marriages conducted according to 

Ii8 



THEISM IN BENGAL 

the Brahmic ritual were null and void, and if Brahmas 
could not, without doing violence to their consciences or 
public professions, conform to the ceremonials of orthodox 
Hinduism, it was to be feared that the young Chui^ch, 
apparentl)'' making for Christianity, would be stifled in its 
very infancy. The State alone could afford relief to the 
distressed Brahmas in this serious difficulty, while at the 
same time the granting of such relief would undoubtedly 
give offence to the great Hindu community as tending to 
facilitate apostasy from theu' ancient faith. 

Fortunately for the cause of the Brahmas the ruling 
power in India was ready to give encouragement to what 
it considered the healthy moral and social development of 
the people. Aware of, and relying upon, such sympathy, 
formal application was made to the Government in 1868, 
by the progressive Brahmas, under the leadership of 
Babu Keshub Chunder Sen, for an act legahsing Brahma 
marriages. 

Sir Henry Maine was at that time legal member of 
the Viceroy's Council, and speaking in the Council Chamber 
on the 10th of September, he said that after due inquiry he 

" had convinced himself that the creed of the Brahmas 
lacked stability. The process by which the sect was 
formed might be increasing in activity, but there 
seemed also to be a growing disinclination to accept 
any set of common tenets. It would be difficult for 
legal purposes to define a Brahma, and if no definitions 
were given, there might shortly be petitions for relief 
by persons who were in the same legal position as the 
present applicants, but who declared that they could 
not conscientiously call themselves Brahmas." 

Sir Henry Maine, however, recognised the case in point 
as one in which relief could not be withheld by Government, 
and to meet the difficulty introduced a Bill, which was,, in 
fact, a Civil Marriage Bill. The proposed enactment met 
with opposition in many quarters, and was modified so as 
to meet the specific case of the Brahma Samaj. But at 
this stage an unexpected difficulty presented itself. The 
conservative Brahmas of the Adi Samaj, deeming themselves 
Hindus, deprecated any special legislation. To quote the 

119 



BRAHMANS, THEISTS, AND MUSLIMS OF INDIA 

words of Sir James Fitzjames Stephen, who succeeded Sir 
Henry Maine as Legal Member of the Viceroy's Council : 

"The Progressive Brahmas have broken far more 
decisively with Hinduism than the Conservatives. The 
object of the Conservatives is to pour the new wine into 
old bottles so that the one may not be wasted, nor the 
other broken. The Progressive Brahmas undertake to 
provide at once new wine and new bottles. As regards 
marriage, the difference between the two parties appears 
to be this : the marriage ceremonies adopted by the 
Progressive Brahmas depart more widely from the 
Hindu law than those which are in use amongst the 
Adi-Brahmas. The Adi-Brahmas indeed contend that 
by Hindu law, their ceremonies, though irregular, would 
be valid. The Progressive Brahmas admit that by 
Hindu law their marriages would be void. Moreover, 
the Progressive Brahmas are opposed both to infant 
marriage and to polygamy far more decisively than 
the Conservative party." 

Eventually the relief to Brahmas took the form of an 
Act providing, to use Sir James Fitzjames Stephen's words, 

"a form of marriage to be celebrated before the 
Eegistrar for persons who did not profess either the 
Hindu, the Muhammadan, the Parsee, the Sikh, the 
Jaina, or the Buddhist religion, and who are neither 
Christians nor Jews." 

This Act received the sanction of the Legislature on the 
19th of March 1872. 

The effect of such legislation as the above is, in the 
opinion of Sir Alfred Lyall, following Sir H. S. Maine, to 
arrest the process of constant change which has been going 
on in Hindu social and religious life since the earliest times.^ 
In other words, the tendency of British Indian law is to 
destroy the remarkable elasticity of the Hindu religious 
system, which has for ages enabled it to retain within its 
pale sects holding the most divergent theological opinions 
and observing the most dissimilar customs. Henceforth 
pronounced heretics of the Brahma type will have to openly 

^ Sir Alfred Lyall, Asiatic Studies, First Series, pp. 8, 9. 
120 



THEISM IN BENGAL 

acknowledge themselves to be non-Hindus, a fact which will 
make their reabsorption, at any future date, into the old 
national faith a matter of considerable difficulty. Whether 
the conditions thus created by the operation of British 
Indian law will be prejudicial to Hinduism or the reverse, 
is an open question, which Time alone can decide. 



121 



THEISM IN 'BE'NGAL—co7itinued 







Section IV. — Keslmb Chimder Sen worshipped by some followers — His 
views in respect to his own mission — Visit to England — Result. 

'OWEYEE, the career of Keshub was not 
without its dark days. Dazzled, I may say 
burthened, by the eloquence of their leader, 
and by the figure he was making in the 
world, many of his followers began to wor- 
ship him as an incarnation of the Deity, and 
to supplicate his intercession on their behalf. 

Certainly this was nothing new in the history of Indian 
sects, for the worship of living religious leaders and teachers 
(usuall:y~c9;lled by the general name Guru) is common all 
over India.-^ 

Whattne recipient of these divine honours did to 
discountenance them is not very clear, but two of the 
missionaries of his own Church, presumably with sufficient 
reason, published in a Calcutta newspaper a letter, which I 
reproduce without abridgment, on account of the side-light 
it throws on certain phases of religious development : 

A NEW DEITY. 

" Sir, — For the information of that section of your 
readers who are Brahmas, please publish the following 
protest against a mischievous and unBrahmic practice 
of certain Brahmas of Calcutta and the Mofussil : 

"We are astonished and grieved to observe that 
some Brahmas have begun to acknowledge Baboo 
Keshub Chunder Sen, as a saviour of men, commissioned 
by God. They accordingly call him 'Good Lord, 
Kedeemer, etc.,' and pray to him for salvation in this 
wise: 

122 



THEISM IN BENGAL 

" ' Good Lord ! I am a great sinner, have mercy on 
me and save me. Lead me to the feet of thy merciful 
father. don't forsake me ! ' 

" Even to divine service they have given an objec- 
tionable form. They now offer up their prayers to 
God, through Keshub Baboo. We have heard a 
Brahma pray to Keshub Baboo thus : 

" ' Good Lord, I am a great sinner. I cannot enter- 
tain a hope that God will hear my prayer. Do pray 
for me to your merciful father.' 

" This sort of proceeding on the part of certain 
Brahmas has given a shock to almost all Brahma 
Samajes, as has been brought to notice during a tour in 
the Mofussil, and many are jumping to the conclusion 
that Keshub Baboo is propagating his own worship and 
not that of God. But we would advise them to wait 
till we hear anything from him for or against this 
practice. 

" In conclusion, we beg of our Brahma brethren, who 
have thus begun to worship Keshub Baboo, to think 
what they are about ; what a dangerous doctrine they 
are preaching to the world, a doctrine which has been 
the cause of all bitterness and antipathy between 
religious sects, and which has ultimately led men to 
pseudo-divine honours. Vf e also beg of Keshub Baboo 
to direct his efforts to put a stop to the above practice, 
and disabuse the public mind that is prejudiced against 
him. " Jadoo Nath Chuckerbutty, 

" Buoy Kessen Goswamee, 
" Missionaries of the Brahma Samaj of India. 

" Calcutta, 2Qth October 1868." ^ 

The threatened storm blew over. Explanations were 
apparently given and accepted. Some pretended to pooh- 
pooh the whole thing, and to regard the matter, so far as it 
affected the conduct and character of Keshub, as mere idle 
calumny. However, there are peculiarities in Keshub 
Chunder's views of his own mission, which are of some 
interest in this connection. In 1866, in a lecture on " Great 
Men," he propounded the doctrine that God manifests Him- 
self in history through great men, who " are great on account 
of the large measure of the divine spirit which they possess 
and manifest." 

1 Indian Daily News, 28th October 1868, 
123 



BRAHMANS, THEISTS, AND MUSLIMS OF INDIA 

It is only fair to add that while Keshub considered that 
the prophet should be " honoured ^ as a teacher," he himself 
declared that the "idolatrous bending of the knee before 
man is an insult to Heaven, and an audacious violation of 
that entire loyalty and allegiance to God which is demanded 
of every true believer." ^ 

Eegarding his ideas at this time we can probably form 
a fair conception from his public lectures delivered in 
1866-69,^ which are somewhat more sober and substantial, 
less metaphysical and frothy, than those which in later 
years dazzled by their rhetoric, but mystified by their 
transcendentalism the thousands who pressed to hear him 
year after year in the Town Hall of Calcutta. 

He believed in the unity of God — " One without a 
second," and laid special emphasis upon His immanence. 
" God the Creator," he said, " should not be considered apart 
from God the Preserver, He is the immanent power of the 
world, its indwelling life." The immortality of the soul 
he firmly believed in, and a future state of rewards and 
punishments. 

God, he held, makes Himself known to us through His 
wonderful works ; through " great men who are sent into 
the world to benefit mankind " when the necessity for their 
appearance arises ; and lastly, " through the soul or con- 
science of each individual." 

He strongly maintained the doctrine of justification by 
faith, saying: "A man is justified by faith, and not by 
deeds, however excellent." Indeed hhaJcti, or living faith 
in the Supreme Being, was one of the strongest and most 
notable characteristics of the great men already sent into 
the world by God to benefit mankind. Jesus commanded 
Keshub's highest love and admiration. He certainly makes 
allusion to Chaitanya, the great Bengali prophet, whose 
doctrines of justification by faith, and the necessity of 
ecstatic union with God (Krishna), seem to have been in 

•^ Lecture on "The Future Church," January 1869. 

2 Lecture on "Great Men," 1866. 

^ The lectures were — (1) "Jesus Christ; Europe and Asia," 5th May 
1866. (2) "Great Men," 28th September 1866. (3) " Regenerating Faith," 
24th January 1868 ; and (4) " The Future Church," 23rd January 1869. 

124 



THEISM IN BENGAL 

complete harmony with his own ideas and feelings/ but Christ 
was apparently the object of Keshub's special homage. No 
one who denied the divinity of Christ could speak of Him 
with more love and reverence than did Keshub, who seems 
to have been deeply touched and powerfully influenced by 
his study of the Bible, and especially the Gospel history. 
His attitude towards the Bible was somewhat peculiar for 
a non-believer, since he seems to have accepted without 
doubt or cavil the historicity of the entire Bible story, 
from the fall of man in Eden to the founding of Christianity 
amongst the Gentiles by St. Paul. 

There was, however, no existing form of Christianity 
which Keshub was prepared to adopt. He was apparently 
impressed with the idea that he was himself a " great man " 
of the kind he had spoken about, and that he had a special 
mission of his oion to accomplish. But there was nothing 
very novel or striking in this. Vain men and dreamers 
have, in all ages, been apt to flatter themselves with such 
notions. A new Church, Keshub told the world, would 
arise, which, repudiating idolatry, pantheism, and man- 
worship, would " uphold the absolute infinity and unity of 
the Divine Creator." This new Church would be "the 
result of the purer elements of the leading creeds of the 
day, harmonised, developed, and shaped under the influence 
of Christianity." 

In Keshub's opinion both Hinduism and Muhamma- 
danism, and probably all other religions, contained certain 
central truths, surrounded by errors. In his " Church of 
the Future" — which he predicted would be unsparingly 
destructive of idolatry, pantheism, and prophet-worship — 
all that is good in the different religious systems would be 
rescued and preserved, while w?t-important differences would 
be swallowed up in a community of feelings and interests. 
In this Church of the Future, which would eventually be 
embraced by all mankind, each nation would retain its own 
peculiar style and ceremonial. There would " be unity of 
spirit, but diversity of forms." With respect to essentials, 
there could not, of course, be any difference. 

^ For an account of Chaitanya and his sect, see Professor Monier Williams, 
Heligious Thought and Life in India, pp. 138-145. 

125 



BRAHMANS, THEIStS, AND MUSLIMS OF INDIA 

Divested of its rhetorical adjuncts and reduced to its 
proper proportions, Keshub's idea was simply this. In the 
course of time men would gradually refine their respective 
creeds by eliminating, one by one, the errors which dis- 
figured or obscured those central truths, which all possessed 
in a more or less degree. By this process of elimination 
the professors of all the leading creeds would eventually 
arrive at a pure form of theistic religion, which, in regard 
to essentials, would be the same everywhere. 

The realisation of the Future Church was seen as some- 
thing far off, but Keshub was apparently impressed with 
the belief that his mission was to hasten the desired 
result. 

Holding the ideas and opinions which I have attempted 
to summarise in the preceding pages, Keshub visited 
Britain early in 1870. He preached or lectured in all the 
principal cities of both England and Scotland. Men and 
women of all ranks and opinions crowded to hear the dusky 
but eloquent speaker from the Far East, and vied with each 
other in expressions of genuine admiration of the mental 
and moral gifts of their remarkable visitor. The Babu was 
lionised a good deal, and even Eoyalty made a point of 
noticing this unofficial representative from England's Indian 
Empire. From his Diary in England} it appears that 
Keshub saw a good deal of the leaders and influential 
members of the Unitarian Church in England, both 
Christian and purely theistic, and he could not have failed 
to learn from themselves or their published writings, the 
peculiar tenets of the several sections into which theists 
in England and America have separated themselves. He 
preached in many Unitarian chapels, and was everywhere 
listened to with deferential attention. After learning all 
about the Unitarians both within and without the pale of 
Christianity, and obtaining an insight into the dogmas and 
constitution of "the countless and conflicting sects" of 
Christians in England, a subject to which he made pointed 
allusion in a speech at Birmingham, Keshub returned to his 
native land, a " confirmed Indian " and a confirmed theist. 

At the end of his six months' tour in England, Keshub 
1 Published by the Brahma Tract Society, 1886. 
126 



THEISM IN BENGAL 

gave a farewell address at Southampton, in which, after 
affirming his belief in the Fatherhood of God, and the 
Brotherhood of Man, he proceeded to say: 

" The true kingdom of God will not be realised, 
unless the East and the West are joined together, for 
it has been said, and every day, through inspiration, 
we may hear the voice from God, that the East and 
West, the North and the South, shall sit down in the 
kingdom of God. The West, with all its thought and 
culture, its social purity and domestic sweetness, is 
but half the circle of human civilisation and progress. 
The East is the other half. I admire the earnestness 
and firmness of purpose which I have seen here; I 
admire those stupendous works of noble and dis- 
interested charity in which thousands of pure and 
generous-minded English men and women are daily 
engaged. I admire the force of will and the strength 
of character which I see in your nation ; I feel that 
you have nerves of adamant, with which you overcome 
any amount of opposition, and surmount obstacles that 
may come in your path ; but this is not all that God 
requires of us. When I turn to my country and the 
East, I find warmth of heart, solitary contemplation on 
her hills and mountains, deep communion with the 
indwelling and omniscient spirit of the One Supreme 
God ; I see a voluntary and deliberate withdrawing of 
the heart from all anxieties and cares of the world for 
a time, in order to engage in uninterrupted contempla- 
tion of the attributes of God; I see the heart in all 
its fervour and sympathy directed in daily communion 
towards the one loving Father. I see there the heart 
of man, and in England the muid of man, — there the 
soul, here the will ; and as it is our duty to love God 
with all our heart and soul and mind and strength, 
it is necessary that all these four elements of character 
should be united. I do not mean to say that there is 
no such thing as religious fervour in this nation, nor 
do I mean to say that there is no such thing as 
practical righteousness in the nations of the East, but 
that each nation, so at least I believe, represents only 
one side of truth, and represents it with peculiar 
fidelity. The truths which are represented in England 
and Western countries generally, are those which refer 
to force of character, earnestness of purpose, conscien- 
127 



BRAHMANS, THEISTS, AND MUSLIMS OF INDIA 

tious strictness, noble charity, practical duty, whilst 
the truths which I find peculiarly developed in Indian 
— developed to a greater extent than anywhere else — 
and in Eastern countries generally, are those which 
have reference to sweetness of communion, sweetness 
of temper, meekness, and resignation to God. Is it 
not then our duty as brothers to unite England and 
India, the East and the West, that the East may 
receive some of the truths of the West, and the West 
some of the grand ideas of Eastern countries ? " ^ 

The contrast between the busy, practical West and the 
dreamy, meditative East — drawn with so much insight and 
expressed above with so much propriety — seems to have 
made a strong impression on Keshub Chunder, and we find 
him, on his return to India, vigorously initiating and carry- 
ing out various measures of social reform, suggested by the 
new ideas he had brought from Europe. Of course it is 
not to be supposed that his journey to Europe had simply 
directed Keshub Chunder's energies towards the realisation 
of practical aims. The effect produced upon his character, 
his self-esteem, and his future work by the reception he 
received in England must have been considerable. It is a 
far cry from Calcutta to London. In Keshub's case it was 
no small thing for him to have been taken about to this place 
and the other by an ex-Viceroy of India, to have dined with 
Dukes and Cabinet Ministers, to have been escorted hither 
and thither by admiring English ladies, to have had his 
acquaintance sought by men like Dean Stanley and John 
Stuart Mill, to have been consulted by members of H.M. 
Government, to have had his photograph asked for by 
Eoyalty, and last, but by no means least, to have had his 
opinions on religious and even political matters received in 
England as the opinions, not of a merely well-informed 
person, but of a leader and teacher of men. 

^ Keshicb Chunder Sen in England. (Bralima Tract Society, Calcutta.) 
Second Edition, 1887, pp. 388-390. 



128 



THEISM IN -BENGAL— continued 

Section V. — Keshub Chunder Sen's proceedings, which lead to a new 
schism and the founding of the Sadharan Brahma Samaj. 

IT may be difficult to judge what effect all the well- 
meant attentions he received in England may have 
had on the character of Keshub, but he must have 
been more than human if he did not come back 
to his native land with an exalted opinion of his 
own place in the world, and of his mission for the 
regeneration of mankind. His first step on his return to 
Calcutta was to found the "Indian Eeform Association," 
composed of Hindus, Muhammadans, Parsees, and Euro- 
peans, with a view to promote the moral and social better- 
ment of the natives of India, by especial attention to the 
amelioration of the condition of women, by the spread of 
education and cheap literature, and the discouragement of 
intemperance. In furtherance of the proposed objects, a 
female normal and adult school and a theological seminary 
were established. 

A newspaper was started at the low price of one pice 
the copy. A boarding house for Brahmas was opened at 
Calcutta, and other institutions inaugurated. 

But Keshub, once the fiery leader of the extreme radical 
party, was already too conservative for the younger genera- 
tion. They desired to do away with the purdah which 
screened the women during worship at the Mandir. This 
innovation was not to the reformer's taste, for, as one of 
his biographers says : " He was always against the kind of 
female emancipation in vogue amongst the Europeans,"^ 
a fact which, had they known of it, would have been dis- 

^A Biogra])hical Sketch of Keshuh Chunder Sen, especially prepared for 
the Students' Jubilee. (Vedanta Press, Calcutta.) 
I 1 29 



BRAHMANS, THEISTS, AND MUSLIMS OF INDIA 

appointing to the ladies who so kindly took Keshub by 
the hand in England. However, a compromise was made. 
Seats were placed outside the purdah for such ladies as 
might care to use them. 

To obviate any misapprehension with respect to 
Keshub's attitude towards woman in the abstract, I 
should add that : 

"To him woman was the incarnation of divinity. 
He never proposed to compare the superiority or 
inferiority of man and woman. In woman he saw 
God. The tenderness of a wife or a mother was to 
him a celestial fact; and seeing God in woman, he 
honoured woman with all the Christlike honour — all 
the tenderness and sweetness — the lingering memories 
of which pierced like barbed arrows the hearts of 
many faithful and true women he left behind him." ^ 

The quondam worshipper of Kali and Durga might well 
see divinity in woman, but the worldly-wise Oriental realised 
the undesirability, at any rate in Bengal, of freely associating 
women with men even in divine worship. 

The period at which we have arrived seems to have been 
with Keshub one of restless religious excitement. In 1873 
he brought the doctrine of Adesh, or special inspiration, 
rather, prominently forward, declaring emphatically that 
inspiration is not only possible, but is a veritable fact in the 
lives of many devout souls in this age.^ This dangerous 
doctrine which, as subsequent events proved, could only too 
easily be made use of for unworthy purposes, met with many 
opponents amongst the more sober-minded Samajists. The 
year 1874 and two or three years following, witnessed a 
special development of that essentially Asiatic, and perhaps 
more especially Indian, form of religious feeling, which finds 
its natural satisfaction in solitary ecstatic contemplation. 
As a necessary consequence, an order of devotees was 
established in 1876, divided into three main classes, which 
in ascending gradation were designated Shabaks, Bhaktas, 
and Yogis. The lowest class, divided into two sections, is 

* Mr. P. C. Mozoondar, "Aims and Principles of Keslinb Ch under Sen " : 
A sennon delivered in the Town Hall, Calcutta. 

2 Lecture on Inspiration, delivered on the 25th January 1873. 

130 



THEISM IN BENGAL 

devoted to religious study and the practical performance 
of religious duties, including doing good to others. The 
aspiration of the Bhakta is " inebriation in God." He " is 
most passionately fond of God, and delights in loving Him, 
and all that pertains to Him. . . . The very utterance of 
the Divine name causes his heart to overflow, and brings 
tears of joy to his eyes." As for the highest order of 
devotees,\the Yogis — " they live in the spirit-world, and 
readily commune with spiritual realities. They welcome 
whatever is a help to the subjugation of the entire soul, and 
are always employed in conquering selfishness, carnality, 
and worldliness. They are happy in prayer and meditation, 
and in the study of nature." This last addition about the 
study of nature appears, to say the least, extremely un- 
practical, if not foolish, for the Yogi is also admonished by 
Keshub to draw his feet, his ears, his eyes, and his hands 
away from the world, and to concentrate them within his 
oivn soul, a procedure not likely to lead to results in science, 
and is possibly a concession, though a mere verbal concession, 
to the spirit of the age. Initiations into these various ascetic 
orders were actually made by Keshub Chunder Sen, who, 
in his address on the occasion, informed the Yogis that 
there would be some difference between himself and the 
men who sat around him, as the message of light would 
come to them through him.i As for the Minister, he too 
went into retirement to give himself up to contemplation. 
As a necessary consequence of the predominance in the 
church of the spirit of renunciation and the practice 
of solitary communion with God, the business side of the 
Samaj suffered. The schools were neglected, some had to 
be closed, and other undertakings came, similarly, to an 
untimely end. Keshub had already passed the meridian 
of his intellectual and working life. The stimulating effect 
of his visit to England was wearing off. He and his 
followers were, in fact, drifting back into the hereditary 
Yogaism and pantheism of India, which, as I shall show 
further on, were assuming larger proportions in Keshub's 
mind. The religious tendencies exhibited by Keshub since 
his return from England, and especially his assumption of 

^MissE. B. Collet:, The Brahma Year-Book for IS77, pp. 23-25. 



BRAHMANS, THEISTS, AND MUSLIMS OF INDIA 

autocratic superiority in all matters connected even with 
the secular business and arrangements of the Samaj, — his 
most ardent admirers admit that he could not brook 
opposition, — led to the estrangement of a small number of 
his followers, forming, apparently, a compact party in the 
Samaj, who raised their protests from time to time against 
the proceedings of their leader. The tension of ill-feeling 
growing out of rivalries and unsatisfied aspirations in the 
Samaj was gradually increasing, when a deliberate act of 
the reformer gave his opponents their opportunity, and 
called down upon himself the public censure of his 
followers, recorded in a resolution adopted at a public 
meeting held on the 22nd March 1878. 

The resolution is sufficiently precise to need no com- 
mentary. It was couched in the following words : — 

"That in the opinion of the members of the con- 
gregation of the Bharatvarshiya Brahma Mandir, 
assembled in this meeting, Babu Keshub Chunder 
Sen, the Minister of the Mandir, by countenancing 
the premature marriage of his daughter, has violated 
principles accepted by himself and the Brahma Samaj 
of India, and by allowing Hindu rites to be observed 
in connection with that marriage, has sanctioned an 
idolatrous early marriage, consequently, in the opinion 
of this meeting, he cannot continue in the office of 
the Minister." ^ 

An attempt was made to get possession of the Mandir, 
but Keshub invoked the assistance of the police, and 
frustrated his opponents. 

The bridegroom in this case was, it should be added, a 
person of high rank, the boy Eajah of Cooch Behar, a fact 
which accounts for, though it cannot justify, the action of 
the reformer,^ whose devoted followers however, believing 

^ G. S. Leonard, A History of the Brahma Samaj, p. 165. 

2 In connection with this marriage the following extract from a news- 
paper under native management, published at Lahore, will not perhaps be 
uninteresting : — 

"The Maharajah of Cooch Behar has made the handsome present of 
Rs.5000 to the shrine of Kali-Ghat to propitiate the goddess on behalf of the 
new-born heir to the Raj. A similar sum has also been paid to the Kurta 
of the Muchooa Bazaar Street. But the Rajah, we were assured by Baboo 
K. C. Son, was a staunch Brahmo." — The Tribune, Lahore, 20th May 1882. 



THEISM IN BENGAL 

in the doctrine of Adesh, asserted that in this, as in other 
matters, their leader acted under divine inspiration, acted 
indeed by God's direct command. The Prophet Muhammad, 
it is well known, often claimed to have been similarly 
favoured in matters domestic. 

The events just narrated brought matters to a crisis. 
Another schism took place in the church, and a party of 
uncompromising theists, under the leadership of Pandit 
Sevanath Sastri started, on the 15th May 1878, a new 
Samaj, known henceforth as the Sadharan or Universal 
Brahma Samaj. The creed of this, the youngest of the 
Brahma sects is, briefly — 

1. Belief in the immortality of an infinite creator. 

2. Belief in the immortality of the soul. 

3. Belief in the duty and necessity of spiritual worship 

of God. 

4. Disbelief in any infallible book, or man, as the means 

of salvation.^ 

The Sadharan Brahma Samaj has set its face steadily 
against idolatry and caste. One of its rules is that " none 
but Brahmos who have entirely discarded idolatry and caste 
in their private lives can be office-bearers, ministers, mission- 
aries, or members of the Executive Committee of the Samaj." ^ 

As a precaution against the undue ascendancy or 
arbitrary action of individuals, the constitution of the 
Samaj has been laid down upon democratic lines, all 
disputed points being put to and decided by the votes of 
the members. The Samaj, which has been in existence for 
twenty-eight years, has been very active, and has achieved 
a fair measure of success in Calcutta. 

Being a purely theistic sect of the type long known in 
Europe and America, the Sadharan Brahma Samaj has, of 
course, many friends outside India, but this very fact, 
together with the pronounced non-Hindu character of the 
Samaj, will undoubtedly prove prejudicial to its influence 
in its own country, and prevent its growth beyond very 
moderate limits. 

^ Pandit Sevanath Sastri, M.A., The Ncio Dispensation and the Sadharan 
Brahma Samaj, p. 90. 
" Idem; p. 108. 




THEISM IN BEl^GrAL-continucd 

Section VI. — Kesliub believes liiniself to be a propliet — Proclaims the 
New Dispensation — Its aims and objects — Keshub's death— Subsequent 
history of the sect. 

'HE schism which culminated in the formation 
of the Sadharan Brahma Samaj was a very 
serious event in the career of Keshub Chunder 
Sen, and was met in characteristic fashion. 
To cover his recent defeat, he made more 
arrogant claims as a divinely appointed 
teacher than at any previous stage of his public life, and 
at the same time, in virtue ostensibly of a new commission 
from God, materially revised his teachings to suit his altered 
circumstances, and to meet the exigencies of his case. 

Within a few months of the schism just referred to, 
the reformer took as the theme of a public discourse the 
question " Am I an inspired Prophet ? " and came to the 
conclusion that " he was not as ordinary men are," that he 
was under direct divine inspiration, and "commissioned by 
God to preach certain truths," and that those who protested 
against his preaching protested against the dispensations of 
God Almighty. In a word, Keshub, while still sometimes 
affecting humility, declared himself a prophet in unmis- 
takable words. Further, probably as a sort of apology or 
explanation of his inconsistencies and doctrinal caprices, he 
informed the world that the Lord had told him he was to 
have " no doctrine, no creed, but a perennial and perpetual 
inspiration from Heaven." 

Now Keshub's hitherto ostentatiously professed leanings 
towards Christianity had undoubtedly militated against his 
popularity with his own countrymen, so he seems to have 
deemed it advisable at the present crisis to revise his creed 

134 




To face page 134 



THEISM IN BENGAL 

in this respect, and henceforth gave greater prominence to 
Hindu ideals and sentiments in his theology. Dr. Bhatta- 
charjee has pointed out that the moment was peculiarly 
convenient for such a change; as Keshub's distinguished 
patron, Lord Lawrence, a man of deep religious convictions, 
who had done so much to bring the Bengali reformer 
prominently before the world as one about to become a 
Christian, had recently died in England. Eeleased from 
the ties of gratitude which, through the friendship of 
the late Viceroy of India, had bound him to Christianity, 
Keshub remodelled his old opinions and taught quite a 
new doctrine. 

The views which at this period Keshub expressed in 
regard to Christ and Christianity, divested of their 
mysticism and disentangled from the web of rhetoric 
which he spun round them, are both curious and inter- 
esting. He held, as the outcome of long years of study 
and meditation, that the Asiatic Christ of history, the 
man of Nazareth, is only partially understood in Europe, 
and, in important points, totally misunderstood. The Christ 
offered to India by the English missionary — a man of 
narrow dogmas and practical good works — was in Keshub's 
opinion an English version of the true Christ of Judaea. 
This true Christ, the Asiatic Christ, was a pantheist and a 
yogi ! — a yogi of unblemished virtue, who retired to the 
mountains to pray. The memorable assertion " I and my 
Father are One " was, as Keshub understood it, but the 
expression of the doctrine of communion with divinity — 
that communion which necessarily follows from the total 
suppression of self, and is familiar to Hindu philosophy 
and theology. The claim made by Jesus in the words 
" Before Abraham was, I am," meant to Keshub no more 
than this : that Christ felt He had existed potentially in 
the Supreme Being from all eternity — " though the human 
Christ was born, all that was divine in Him existed eternally 
in God."^ It will be noticed that Keshub Chunder Sen 
indulged in no critical objections to the authenticity of the 
Gospels. He accepts them in their entirety, but assumes 

■* Keshub Chunder Sen, Lecture "India asks, 'Who is Christ?'" 9th 
April 1879. 



BRAHMANS, THEISTS, AND MUSLIMS OF INDIA 

the right of interpreting the history of Christ's life and 
works in his own way, which is characteristically Indian, 
showing clearly what firm hold pantheism and Yogaism 
have upon the mind of India ; and how necessary it is to 
keep them prominently in view when studying Indian life 
or estimating former or contemporary religious develop- 
ments in India. In the days of his intellectual and physical 
vigour, before his visit to England, we find Keshub speaking 
of pantheism, " with its arrogant spirit of self -adoration," in 
terms of strong disapproval, and predicting that it, along 
with other evils, would find no place in the Church of the 
Future. But ten years later, 1879, this inspired teacher 
tells the world, " I am in spirit a pantheist, though I hate 
the errors of pantheism. I wish to encourage this spirit 
of pantheism in India"; ^ and in another place: 

" Pantheism and mysticism are things of Asia, while 
positivism and all the sciences of the day are from 
Europe. My Church is an Asiatic Church. I am in 
my very bones and blood, in the very constitution of 
my soul, essentially an Asiatic. . . . Like a mighty 
river the stream of natural devotion comes into my 
Church from the Vedas and the Upanishads, the pan- 
theistic books and mystic scriptures of ancient India." 

As to Yogaism he says : 

"Though living in the nineteenth century, I go 
back to the mystic age to drink of the pure fountain of 
Yoga communion there. I go to the Aryan Yogis of 
ancient India to learn contemplation." 

Keshub must have felt that he was called upon to prove 
his credentials by effecting something noteworthy — some- 
thing that might satisfy the aspirations of his followers, 
and be an answer to his adversaries. Let us see what he 
attempted, and what success attended his efforts. 

Out of the hosts of the Hindu Pantheon the Bengalis 
have, as explained in an earlier chapter, the goddesses 
Durga and Kali as the special objects of their worship, 
and throughout their religious development have manifested 
a marked leaniog towards the adoration of Sakti or the 
female energy. Natttrally, therefore, Keshub Chunder Sen, 
^ Keshub Chunder Sen, Lecture "Am I an inspired Prophet?" 
136 



THEISM IN BENGAL 

under national and hereditary influences, recognised in the 
Supreme Euler of the Universe, the mother of mankind. 
He proclaimed the motherhood of God in his usual im- 
pulsive, emotional, and extravagant way in the year 1879. 
Flags inscribed with the word "Mother" were hoisted 
upon the house-tops, and processions paraded the streets 
singing hymns to the Divine Mother, who is made to say, 
in the Mirror of the 12th October 1879 : "Ye shall go forth 
from village to village, singing my mercies, and proclaiming 
unto all men that I am India's Mother." 

Accordingly a band of Keshub's missionaries with some 
attendants made a short tour in Bengal, preaching the 
motherhood of God, and Keshub's devoted followers have 
ever since addressed their prayers to the Divine Mother.^ 
This was only the beginning of the work entrusted to the 
new prophet. 

Freed by the schism of May 1878 from the restraining 
influence of the more practical and sober members of the 
Samaj, and once fairly launched on the sea of innovation 
under the sway of the spirit of religious mysticism, there 
was no limit to the vagaries in which Keshub indulged, 
and to the blind obedience with which some of his adherents 
accepted his inspired dicta. He seemed determined to 
exemplify in his own person the idea to which he had 
given public expression : " That there is something remark- 
ably irregular in the lives and career of great men, which 
ordinary facts and precedents cannot account for or explain. 
. . . Great men, like comets, move in eccentric orbits." 

Towards the end of 1879, Keshub's Sunday Mirror 
announced the advent of one of those manifestations of 
the divine will, which occur at special times and under 
special circumstances, when the world is in need of a 
revival or upheaving. And the prophet himself followed 
this announcement by proclaiming to the world in January 
1880 the birth of the " New Dispensation." And what is 
this New Dispensation ? 

^ "Of late it has become customary to address the Deity as Mother," — 
The Faith and Progress of the Brahma Samaj, by P. C. Mozoomdar, p. 394. In 
this book, pp. 394-401, the Bengali feeling in respect to the "Divine Mater- 
nity" is well set forth by one who is both a Brahma and a native of Bengal. 



BRAHMANS, THEISTS, AND MUSLIMS OF INDIA 

" It is the harmony of all Scriptures and Prophets 
and Dispensations. It is not an isolated creed, but the 
science which binds and explains and harmonises all 
religions. It gives to history a meaning, to the action 
of Providence a consistency, to quarrelling churches a 
common bond, and to successive dispensations a con- 
tinuity. It shows by marvellous synthesis how the 
different rainbow colours are one in the light of heaven. 
The New Dispensation is the sweet music of diverse 
instruments. It is the precious necklace in which 
are strung together the rubies and pearls of all ages 
and climes. It is the celestial court where around 
enthroned Divinity shine the lights of all heavenly 
saints and prophets. It is the wonderful solvent, which 
fuses all dispensations into a new chemical compound. 
It is the mighty absorbent, which absorbs all that is 
true and good and beautiful in the objective world." ^ 

Following this announcement, and within the same year, 
Keshub Chunder's organ, the Sunday Mirror, gave, as a 
Bengali Brahman remarked, "the following certificate of 
good character to the Hindu religion " : ^ — 

" Hindu idolatry is not to be altogether overlooked 
or rejected. As we explained some time ago, it repre- 
sents millions of broken fragments of God, collect them 
together and you get the individual Divinity. To 
believe in an undivided deity without reference to 
those aspects of His nature is to believe in an abstract 
God, and it would lead us to practical rationalism and 
infidelity. If we are to worship Him in all His mani- 
festations we shall name one attribute — Sarswatee, 
another Lashmi, another Mahadeva, another Jagadhatri, 
etc., and worship God each day under a new name, 
that is to say, in a new aspect." 

Such teaching was assuredly pure Hinduism, and utterly 
at variance with the tenets of earlier Brahmaism. 

The New Dispensation having come into the world to 
harmonise conflicting creeds and regenerate mankind, must 
have its outward symbol, its triumphant banner, floating 
proudly on the joyful air of highly favoured India. 

^Keshub Cliuiider Sen, "We Apostles of the New DisjDensation." 
Lecture delivered in Calcutta on the 22nd Januarj' 1881. 

" Dr. J. N. Bhattacharjee, M.A., D.L., Hindu Castes and Sects, p. 168. 

1.^.8 



THEISM IN BENGAL 

A flag was therefore made, and formally consecrated as 
the "Banner of the New Dispensation." This emblem of 
" regenerated and saving theism " the new prophet him- 
self formed with a yak's tail, and kissed with his own 
inspired lips. In orthodox Hindu fashion, his missionaries 
— apostles of the New Dispensation — went round it with 
lights in their hands, while his less privileged followers 
respectfully touched the sacred pole, and humbly bowed 
down to it.^ In a word, the banner was worshipped as 
Hindu idols are worshipped any day in India. Carried 
away by a spirit of innovation, anxious to keep himself 
prominently before the world, and realising no doubt that 
since churches and sects do not flourish on intellectual 
pabulum only, certain mystic rites and gorgeous ceremonials 
were necessary to the success of the New Dispensation, 
Keshub introduced into his church various observances 
which attracted a good deal of attention, and did not 
escape criticism. 

On one occasion he went with his disciples in procession, 
singing hymns, to a stagnant tank in Calcutta, and made 
believe that they were in Palestine, and on the side of the 
flowing Jordan. Standing near the tank, Keshub said, 
" Beloved brethren, we have come into the land of the Jews, 
and we are seated on the bank of the Jordan. Let them 
that have eyes see. Verily, verily, here was the Lord Jesus 
baptized eighteen hundred years ago. Behold the holy 
waters wherein was the Son of God immersed." 

Addressing the water before him, Keshub said : " 
Thou Great Vanina, Water of Life, Sacred Water, Mighty 
Expanse of Sea and Oceans and Kivers, we glorify thee ; 
Thou art not God ; but the Lord is in thee. . . ." 

After explaining that Jesus plunged into the Jordan 
"because He saw the water was full of God," Keshub 
anointed himself with oil after the manner of the Bengalis, 
and immersed himself three times in the water, saying: 
" Glory to the Father, Glory unto the Son, Glory unto the 
Holy Ghost," and then took a fourth immersion to the glory 
of " Truth, Wisdom, and Joy in One." 

^ Paudit Sevanath Sastri, M.A., The New Dispensaliou and the Sadharan 
Brahma Samaj, p. 55. 



BRAHMANS, THEISTS, AND MUSLIMS OF INDIA 

We learn also that Keshub and his disciples attempted 
to hold communion with saints and prophets of the olden 
time, upon whose works and teachings they had been 
pondering in retirement and solitude. 

On this subject the following notice appeared in the 
Sunday Mirror: — 

"It is proposed to promote communion with 
departed saints amongst the more advanced Brahmos. 
With a view to achieve this object successfully, ancient 
prophets and saints will be taken one after another on 
special occasions and made the subject of close study, 
meditation, and prayer. Particular places also will be 
assigned to which the devotees will resort as pilgrims. 
There for hours together they will try to draw inspira- 
tion from particular saints. We believe a spiritual 
pilgrimage to Moses will be shortly undertaken. Only 
earnest devotees ought to join." 

This idea of the efficacy of contemplation to ensure 
communion with Deity or disembodied spirits, is one pre- 
eminently and characteristically Hindu. It is indeed the 
Indian idea of Yoga, which formed the subject of Keshub 
Chunder's latest writing. 

The same year Keshub performed what is known as the 
Horn ceremony, a sort of adoration of fire.^ Addressing the 
flames, he said, " Thou blazing Agni (fire). Great are thou, 
great among the forces in creation. We shall honour thee 
and magnify thee because of thy greatness and majesty. 
Thou art not God ; we do not adore thee, but in thee dwells 
the Lord," and so on,^ 

Attracted by the mystery of the Eucharist, the Brahma 
reformer seems also to have adopted this rite in 1881, 
using rice and milk instead of bread and wine. At an 
earlier date he had, in imitation of the practice of certain 
worshippers of Vishnu, danced a mystic dance with his 
followers, clad in gay garments around the invisible 
" Divine Mother " in the Brahma Mandir. Thus we have 
both Hindu and Christian rites and ceremonies alike 
finding favour with the prophet of the New Dispensation, 

^ Described in Indian Life, Religious and Social, pp. 95-97. 
^ The Ncio DisiJcnsation and the Sadharan Brahma Samaj, by Pandit 
Sevanath Sastri, M.A., pp. 50-59. 

140 



THEISM IN BENGAL 

who in adopting them of course affected to give them a 
new spiritual allegorical meaning. As an instance we may 
cite the Horn ceremony, which, in the " Brahma Samaj of 
India represents burning the passions in effigy." ^ 

What Keshub was trying to effect — what at least was 
his ostensible object at this time (May 1881) — may be judged 
from the following extract from a letter of his to Professor 
Max Miiller : ^ — 

" The British public ought to know how the most 
advanced type of Hinduism in India is trying to absorb 
and assimilate the Christianity of Christ, and how it 
is establishing and spreading, under the name of the 
New Dispensation, a new Hinduism, which combines 
Yoga and Bhakti, and also a new Christianity, which 
blends together Apostolical faith and modern civilisa- 
tion and science." 

It may not be irrelevant to notice the fact that in 1880, 
or prior to Keshub's letter to Professor Max Miiller, there 
appeared an article by Mr. Edward White in the Calctitta 
Review, explaining Edward von Hartmann's views in regard 
to the religion of the future, in which the following quota- 
tion from von Hartmann appears : — 

"Looking to the course of history, we find that 
the religion of the future must be realised through a 
synthesis of the Hindu and Judseo-Christian phases of 
religious thought. It must combine the advantages of 
both, and thereby become capable of explaining both, 
as a universal religion, such a pan-monotheistic system 
would be most in conformity to reason, and the best 
adapted to excite and satisfy the religious sentiments. 
It would afford the strongest metaphysical support to 
ethics, and approach nearest to giving that which men 
seek as truth in religion." 

Strange as it may seem, it is not at all improbable that 
Keshub, in introducing into his Church heterogeneous rites 
and ceremonies borrowed from Christianity and Hinduism, 
was actually deluding himself into the belief that he was 
uniting the two religions, and carrying into effect the 

* The TheisticEeviewandlnterpreter of 1881, quoted in Count D'Alviella's 
The Contemporary Evohdion of Religioios Thought (1885), p. 287. 
- Max Miiller, Biographical Essays, p. 117. 

141 



BRAHMANS, THEISTS, AND MUSLIMS OF INDIA 

glorious object of his New Dispensation. His rhetorical 
approval of Muhammadanism and Buddhism, of Zoro- 
astrianism and the rest, began and ended in mere words. 
Keshub was indeed a Hindu strongly leavened with 
Christianity, and perhaps, in his earlier manhood, not 
without a tincture of rationalism. In his best days he 
was more Christian than Hindu — in his later life, more 
Hindu than Christian. 

But consecrated banners, musical processions, pilgrimages 
to Jordan, mystic dances, the adoption of rites and cere- 
monies from other creeds, had not exhausted the resources 
or inventive powers of Keshub Babu, who, with his old love 
for the stage and stage effect, brought out, at the end of 
1882, a moral play, written by one of his disciples, in which 
the prevailing vices of young Bengalis were satirised, and 
the triumph of the New Dispensation dramatically illus- 
trated. In this performance the prophet, as we may well 
call him, appeared behind the footlights in his favourite 
character of a juggler, and to the delight of his followers 
fashioned instantaneously a single symbol, the symbol of the 
New Dispensation, out of the cross, the crescent, the trident 
of Siva, and other religious emblems of the older faiths of 
the world, — a childish trick at best, the levity of which 
certainly produces an unfavourable impression with respect 
to Keshub's wisdom, and his sense of the fitness of things. 

Shortly after his performance on the stage, the prophet 
of the New Dispensation gave his last public lecture in 
Calcutta, entitled, " Asia's Message to Europe," from which 
it would seem that he had arrived at a more exalted opinion 
of the divine mission entrusted to him than any he had 
held before. Out of a cloud of pretentious rhapsody, con- 
fused thought, fantastic theology, and misunderstood history, 
we gather that Keshub Chunder accepting, in his own way, 
the doctrine of the universal atonement of Christ, indulged 
the ambitious and Utopian dream of uniting, under the 
central banner of the New Dispensation, all the religions 
of the world, in a purified form, but each retaining its own 
individuality, each led by its trusted chief, and each march- 
ing under its respective Scriptures. In other words he 
wanted all religious sects to become catholic in sentiment, 

142 



THEISM IN BENGAL 

to give up sectarianism and yet retain all their own dis- 
tinctive peculiarities ! 

The reader may, perhaps, think that the Brahmist leader 
must have meant something else, something less impractic- 
able; but there is no room for doubt about the matter. 
The accomplishment of this task was, indeed, the special 
mission entrusted by God to Keshub Babu ; it was the 
essence of the New Dispensation, and had been already 
proclaimed by him to the world in a lecture entitled " We 
Apostles of the New Dispensation," and had been reiterated 
in no uncertain terms by Keshub's organ the Sunday Mirror. 
" Our position," said that paper, " is not that truths are 
to be found in all religions, but that all the established 
religions of the world are true. There is a great deal of 
difference between the two assertions." 

Yes, indeed, there is ! And a great deal of difference 
too between this position and that held by the prophet 
himself fourteen years earlier, when he revealed to the 
world the character and constitution of the Church of the 
Future. Many reformers have cherished the fond hope of 
effecting a harmony of various cults by persuading the fol- 
lowers of such faiths that the root-ideas, the basal elements, 
of their respective creeds are essentially identical. Some- 
thing of this kind seems to have been in Keshub's mind in 
the earlier days of his career, but his ideas had undergone 
a great change latterly, and grandiose dreams of uniting 
under one banner all the religions of the world, with little, 
if any, modification, was the final result of five-and-twenty 
years of his ministry. This was Keshub's last word to an 
expectant world, and though his aspiration may be impos- 
sible of realisation, it is so much in keeping with Hindu 
conceptions that it invites further consideration. 

No Jew, Christian, or Muslim could ever have entertained 
Keshub's idea. As each one of these along with his co- 
religionists is chosen of God to the exclusion of the rest of 
mankind, and has special knowledge of the one and only 
way to propitiate God and attain heaven, so each one is 
fiercely intolerant of the faiths of the other two, and in a 
milder degree of all other religions also. Amongst Chris- 
tians themselves we have experience of the bitter hostility 

143 



BRAHMANS, THEISTS, AND MUSLIMS OF INDIA 

of the various churches and sects towards one another, and 
with these familiar facts before us may well marvel at the 
kindly hope which animated the Hindu reformer's spacious 
dream of the union of all the faiths of the world under the 
banner of a single Church universal. Most certainly, as I 
have remarked above, the hope which Keshub Chunder 
cherished could never have occurred to the mind of such 
exclusives as Jew, Christian, or Muslim, and to the followers 
of any of these faiths must appear ridiculous if not impious. 
But the Hindu views this matter from quite another stand- 
point. 

At the "Parliament of Eeligions" held in Chicago in 
1893, the Bengali Sadhu Swami Vivakananda said, " that 
it was a Hindu principle to recognise all faiths as expressions 
of truth, and that from his earliest boyhood he had repeated 
a sacred text, used daily by millions in India, which says 
that as the different streams having their sources in different 
places, all mingle their water in the sea, so the different 
paths which men take through different tendencies, various 
though they appear, and crooked or straight, all lead to the 
one Lord." ^ 

And in the Bhagavad-gita, Krishna, as the Supreme 
Being, says to Arjuna : " They also who worship other gods 
and make offering to them with faith, son of Kunti, do 
verily make offering to me, though not according to ordi- 
nance," — a transcendently lofty conception, which fortu- 
nately for humanity is now finding an echo in European 
and American thought. The Hindu, it is true, does not 
regard all modes of worship as equally admirable or 
efficacious, but he deems them all worthy of sympathetic 
countenance as being natural aspirations towards the 
Infinite God; and his sincerity is amply exemplified in 
the growth by accretion, and the heterogeneous constitution, 
of his own religious system, as we find it in the Hinduism 
of the present day. 

Keshub's dream then was quite in harmony with Hindu 
ideals ; but in utter discord with the pretensions and aims 
of the more exclusive and intolerant religions of the world. 
That there will ever be one universal world-religion, or even 

^ The WorlcVs Parliament of Eeligions, vol. i. pp. 242, 243. 

144 



THEISM IN BENGAL 

a happy union of all the faiths of mankind under a common 
banner, is a vain hope ; but time and an increase of know- 
ledge, especially of the science of comparative religion, will 
assuredly promote amongst intellectual men in advanced 
nations a hitherto unknown religious toleration, not con- 
temptuous but sympathetic. 

What Keshub did accomplish, we need hardly say, was 
something very different from what he hoped for. He, who 
was always protesting against sectarianism, added, as if by 
the irony of fate, one more sect, one more religion if you 
like, to the hundreds already existing, weaving into the 
ceremonial law of the new society, rites and symbols 
borrowed without any sense of historical fitness or tra- 
ditional propriety from both Hinduism and Christianity, 
under the belief, it would seem, that by so doing an 
amalgamation of these creeds was being effected under 
the banner of the New Dispensation. At the same time 
Keshub's fervent admiration of Christ's life and work, and 
his eloquent confession of devotion to Jesus, has probably 
made a deeper impression upon his countrymen than the 
preaching of a multitude of foreign missionaries could ever 
have done, although it cannot be denied that these foreign 
Christian missionaries created the moral atmosphere that 
gave birth to a desire for a pure form of worship, and made 
Brahmaism possible. 

Within a few months of the date of his lecture " Asia's 
Message to Europe," already referred to, the Brahma leader 
died, on the 8th January 1884. His body was laid on a 
pyre of sandal-wood at the MmtoUah Burning Ghat, in the 
presence of a large concourse of persons, including some 
Europeans. As the sun was setting, Karvana Chunder Sen, 
eldest son of the deceased, ignited the pyre, uttering these 
words : " In the name of God I convey the sacred fire to 
these last remains. Let the mortal part burn and perish : 
the immortal part will revive. Lord, the liberated soul 
rejoices in thee in thy blessed abode." The prophet's ashes, 
collected in an urn, were carried away, and interred in 
the little chapel adjoining his residence, known as Lily 
Cottage. 

The ceremony of mourning for the dead to be observed 
K 145 



BRAHMANS, THEISTS, AND MUSLIMS OF INDIA 

by his followers was thus prescribed by the Apostolic 
Durbar : 

"All who have taken to mourning for the late 
Babu Keshub Chunder Sen are enjoined by the 
Apostolic Durbar of the New Dispensation, to observe 
it for a fortnight in the following manner : — 

" (1) Every true believer in the New Dispensation 
shall wear on his person a piece of gairu cloth, striped 
in the manner prescribed in the New Sanhita. 

" (2) He shall abstain from animal food. 

"(3) He shall give up all manner of mirth and 
merriment. 

"(4) He shall study the life and teachings of the 
minister. 

"(5) He shall pray for the descent of the Holy 
Spirit, and practise communion daily with the view 
to realise the presence of the Divine Mother, with 
Her child, the minister, on Her lap. 

"(6) He shall try to assimilate the minister's 
character in his life with his daily food. 

" (7) He shall hold conversation with friends every 
evening on spiritual topics." 

On the anniversary of his death the Brahma Tract 
Society sold their publications at half-price to commemo- 
rate the ascension of Keshub Chunder Sen. The death of 
the reformer called forth a great many appreciative articles 
on his life and character in the magazines and newspapers 
of the day. Professor Max Miiller, writing on the occasion, 
gave Keshub Chunder Sen " the first place among his fellow- 
countrymen, and a pre-eminent place among the best of 
mankind." 

" On more than one occasion," observed Count D'Alviella, 
" I have severely condemned his acts, and almost despaired 
of his future. But whenever I turned to his discourses and 
writings, I again fell in some measure under the charm which 
arose from his personality and genius." ^ 

Although an admiring countryman believes Keshub to 
have been " one of the greatest thinkers, one of the greatest 
philosophers, and one of the greatest men of the world," 
I feel bound to say that he was none of these, but a pious 

* The Oontemiwrary Evolution of Religious Thoioghf, p. 284. 
146 



THEISM IN BENGAL 

tnystic, endowed with a rare gift of expression, a marked 
individuality, a strong will, not a little worldly wisdom 
and a charm of manner which gave him a great ascendancy 
over the men with whom he came in contact. 

There was one thing that Keshub believed in, and was 
never tired of teaching with all the glowing eloquence of 
a really gifted man — the immanence of the Creator. To 
Keshub, Grod was the ever-present sustainer of the universe 
an all-pervading Presence, the very life of the world. 
He tries to keep before himself and his hearers the idea 
of a personal God, but the vision seems to elude him ; he 
slides almost unconsciously into pantheism, which after 
all is the natural and hereditary creed of India. With 
his fervent piety and passionate admiration of Jesus, which 
seems to have coloured his entire life, he might possibly, 
under other circumstances, have become a Christian, but 
he came to believe, sincerely perhaps, that he was himself 
entrusted by God with a divine mission. His confidence 
in himself was so great that men believed in him. His 
knowledge was apparently very limited, but his imagina- 
tion was strong. He liked to make allusions to physical 
science, and always spoke with deference and approval of 
the work accomplished by scientists. He himself had a 
short cut to knowledge. He saw, he felt, and thus he 
knew, and what he knew he proclaimed. 

In the later years of his ministry the Brahma Church 
of the New Dispensation was gradually developed into a 
distinct religion. It was no longer Hindu theism nor pure 
theism, but a new and very latitudinarian religion dating 
from the nineteenth century. A religion of sentiment, 
mysterious and ritualistic, with a strong leaning towards 
pantheism and Yogaism, admirably suited to the dreamy 
temperament of the Indian people, and in harmony with 
their past religious development. 

Hardly had the earth closed over Keshub's ashes, when 
jealousies and rivalries disturbed the Brahma camp. The 
first cause of dissension was the Vedi, or marble pulpit in 
the Mandir, which the family of the deceased and several 
of the Brahma missionaries desired to set apart in memory 
of the prophet, whose spirit was supposed to occupy the 

147 



feRAHMANS, THEISTS, AND MUSLIMS OF INDtA 

accustomed place in the congregation of the faithful. On 
the other side, Babu Protab Chunder Mozoomdar, the 
secretary to the congregation, protested against the proposal 
as being contrary to rules and principles laid down by 
Keshub himself; but, if I am not mistaken, the pulpit, 
despite his remonstrances, remains empty to this day in 
memory of the prophet. 

With time, disagreement and strife became so rife 
amongst the leaders of the Church of the New Dispensa- 
tion that in 1901 Babu Suresh Chunder Bose issued a 
public appeal to the followers of the late reformer, exhort- 
ing them to support Babu Protab Chunder Mozoomdar, 
" who," said this advocate, " is verily our Minister, though 
his missionary brethren by disputing the fact have wrecked 
the church." Mozoomdar, who seems to have been a man 
of great earnestness and piety, visited England in 1874, 
and again in 1883 on his way to attend the "Parliament 
of Eeligions " at Chicago, where he represented the Brahma 
Samaj, spoke on several occasions, and created a favourable 
impression. He had been Keshub's companion and friend 
since their college days, and always expressed the highest 
admiration of the founder of the Church of the New 
Dispensation. Under his guidance the Samaj seems to 
have gradually drifted towards American Unitarianism, and 
to have been supported, in no slight degree, by funds from 
the United States of America. On this point the following 
appeared in the Civil and Military Gazette of Lahore on 
the 18th of May 1895 :— 

" The fact that Baboo Protab Chunder Mozoomdar, 
the distinguished Brahmo missionary, who has visited 
Lahore many times on a missionary tour, is now 
dependent on his American friends for the support 
of his mission-work and himself, has caused surprise 
only to those who are ignorant of the dissensions and 
disputes that now obtain in the section of the Brahmo 
Church to which Mr. Mozoomdar belongs. In fact, 
the Brahmos of the New Dispensation are now divided 
into half a dozen small parties, or rather coteries, of 
one of which Mr. Mozoomdar is the recognised leader. 
He himself is not a man of means, and his followers 
are too poor to help him. When Mr. Mozoomdar 
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THEISM IN BENGAL 

visited America as representative of the Brahmo Samaj 
to the Chicago Parliament of Eeligions, his American 
admirers proposed to start a fund in aid of his mission 
work, and this proposal has now been carried out, and 
from the ' Mozoomdar Mission Fund ' in New York 
the Brahmo missionary is in receipt of an annual 
allowance. Mr, Mozoomdar's supporters in America 
are all Christians, chiefly of the Unitarian persuasion, 
who evidently regard him as one of themselves. The 
Brahmo missionary's well-known work entitled Oriental 
Christ, is the cause of his popularity among the 
ministers of the Unitarian Church in America." 

On the 27th May 1905, Mozoomdar died at Calcutta, 
and in announcing his death the Indian Bevieio remarked : 

" Of recent years it has been growing more and 
more apparent that the hold which the Brahmo Samaj 
had on the mind of a considerable section of educated 
Indians during the lifetime of Keshub Chunder Sen, 
and even for some time later, has been steadily 
decreasing, and it is to be apprehended that the 
death of two such leaders like Devendranath and 
Mozoomdar leaves it in a poor plight indeed, seeing 
that, among the younger men, there are none who 
can fill the positions occupied by them in the eye of 
the public as well as regards the affairs of the Samaj 
with anything like success." 

Since Keshub's death there has been a tendency towards 
the establishment of friendly relations between the different 
sections of the Brahmic Church, which was not possible 
during the lifetime of the prophet of the New Dispensa- 
tion. I have before me the report (February 1896 to 
February 1905) of the " Brahmo Samaj Committee," in 
which all three Samajes are found co-operating with one 
another and with Unitarian Societies in England in philan- 
thropic work in India, the funds for such work being 
nearly all derived from England. This arrangement shows 
the subtle potency of gold even in such an unlikely 
enterprise as the drawing together of hostile sects, and 
it reveals moreover the first steps of the inevitable 
ascendancy, in the perhaps not distant future, of the 
English and American Unitarians in the Brahmic Churches. 

149 



BRAHMANS, THEISTS, AND MUSLIMS OF INDIA 

This, for aught I know, may be for the best ; but however 
commendable a spirit of mutual toleration and fellowship 
between the different sections of the Brahma Samajes may 
be, the existence of such feelings amongst sectaries holding 
very divergent views on essential matters, seems only possible 
as the result of an increasing lukewarmness, and, if so, the 
beginning of the end of Brahmaism as a distinctive Indian 
institution cannot be very far off. 

We have followed the history of the Brahmic movement 
from its beginning under Eam Mohun Eoy to its latest 
developments, and it is but just to add that the succession 
of extraordinarily capable and exemplary men who have 
guided the fortunes of the sect in its various branches 
would reflect great credit upon any community whether 
in the East or the West, their lives and teaching bearing 
striking testimony to the high intellectual vigour and moral 
excellence which can be found amongst the Bengalis, a 
race only too frequently and too hastily condemned by 
Europeans. 



150 




THEISM m BENGAL— continued 

Section VII. — Summary and Conclusion, 

EOM the foregoing brief sketch of the history 
of the Brahma Samaj, it is evident that the 
seeds of his subsequent theistic doctrines were 
first planted in the mind of Eam Mohun 
Eoy by his studies in Muslim literature and 
theology. 

Discovering later that his new ideas were at least not 
at variance with interpretations that might be put upon 
certain texts scattered through the ancient Hindu Scriptures, 
he, a Hindu and a Brahman, naturally leaned for support 
upon these national authorities, and taught a pure theism, 
claiming to rest upon the sanction of the Vedas, but borrowing 
ideas in no small measure from Christianity, of which he 
had made a careful and diligent study. Under Debendra 
Nath Tagore, however, the sect founded by Eam Mohun 
Eoy, hard pressed on every side by the criticisms of the 
orthodox Hindus and others, reluctantly gave up their 
profession of faith in the Vedas as the authority for the 
theistic doctrines which they held, but with the conservative 
spirit so natural to the followers of an old religion, they 
continued to cling with tenacity to the sacred Scriptures of 
their country, and, with an amiable inconsistency, prepared 
for themselves a religious text-book by culling passages 
from works whose divine authority they had ceased to 
maintain. While renouncing idolatry, they adhered as 
closely as possible to the rules and customs of Hinduism. 
And this is still the position and attitude of the Adi Brahma 
Samaj. 

With Keshub Chunder Sen new principles of thought 
and action were brought into play, giving, at first, a quite 

151 



BRAHMANS, THEISTS, AND MUSLIMS OF INDIA 

distinct and un-Hindu direction to the current of doctrines 
and events. At one time he seems indeed to have been 
in reality only an advanced Christian Unitarian, holding 
opinions identical with those professed by thousands of 
that sect in England and America. Later on he began to 
believe that he was himself entrusted with a special divine 
mission — the reconciling of all the existing forms of religion. 
As time went by he drifted further and further away from 
his old opinions, and, still clinging to " the Asiatic Christ " 
as a raft of safety, floated into the deep and tranquil waters 
of his own national mysticism and pantheism. But the 
voice of the restless nineteenth century, calling for deeds, 
demanding results, would not let the prophet lose himself 
in the ecstatic Yogaism into which he was now sinking. 
Eoused by the voices of his friends and enemies, the prophet 
rushed into action with feverish excitement, waved aloft 
the banner of the New Dispensation, transformed into one 
device the symbols (alas, the symbols only !) of contending 
creeds, paraded the streets with flags and music, danced 
mystic dances in the Mandir, adopted some of the more 
prominent features and ceremonies of an alien creed, and 
finally passed away leaving behind him a disorganised sect 
and a place of worship of mixed European and Oriental 
architecture, adorned, or perhaps disfigured, with tablets, 
pictures, and statues copied from other churches, and let in 
haphazard into the walls of the new structure. 

As the result of seventy-five years of theistic agitation 
and preaching developed from the germ originally planted 
by Eam Mohun Koy, we have at the present day — 

1. A sect of Hindu theists — the Adi Brahma Samaj ; 

2. A sect of non-Hindu theists — the Sadharan Brahma 

Samaj, who take reason and conscience as their 
guide; and 

3. The sect of the New Dispensation, strongly Hindu in 

its spirit and leanings, but practically believers 
in Keshub Chunder Sen as an inspired teacher or 
prophet. 

The original sect of Eam Mohun Eoy is quite extinct, 
the Adi Brahma Samaj of Debendra Nath Tagore is in a 

152 



THEISM IN BENGAL 

stationary condition ; but the two younger Samajes still 
show signs of vitality and the spirit of propagandism. The 
numerical results of the entire movement, from which so 
much was expected and which has been watched with such 
keen interest in India and outside India, are quite insig- 
nificant, since only 4050 persons returned themselves as 
Brahmas when the last census of India was taken in 1901, 
The indirect results of the movement will be referred to in 
a subsequent page. 

In considering, as we may now do, how far the political 
conditions prevailing in the British Indian Empire are 
favourable, or otherwise, to the establishment of a new 
religion capable of comparing in numbers and influence with 
the old-established faiths, we have to bear in mind that 
the cessation of all internal warfare, the recognised liberty 
of thought and complete freedom of expression enjoyed by 
all religious denominations, the facilities for rapid inter- 
communication afforded by railways, and the possession of 
a common language — English — by all educated natives 
throughout the country, make the quick and extensive 
propagation of new ideas an easy matter, and give the 
greatest encouragement and scope to that widespread 
missionary enterprise, which forms a remarkable feature of 
the Brahmic and other religious movements of the time. 
The common subjection to an alien government gives rise 
to a sense of fellowship amongst the subject races, and 
encourages a feeling of fraternity, beneath which, as in 
Keshub's doctrine of the " Fatherhood of God, and the 
brotherhood of man," we can detect the underlying idea of 
the equality of all men, that is of conquerors and conquered 
alike. The advantages just referred to, which are not confined 
to any one sect, and the bonds of union, more sentimental 
perhaps than real, amongst the educated classes, are not, how- 
ever, sufficient to encourage the expectation of the establish- 
ment in India of a new religion on an extended scale in face 
of the deep-rooted, time-honoured religions which already 
occupy the ground, particularly as the wisdom and policy of 
the British Government preclude the idea of persecution of 
any kind, and new religious movements in India are likely 
to lack that fanaticism amongst the leaders, that loyalty 

153 



BRAHMANS, THEISTS, AND MUSLIMS OF INDIA 

and obedience amongst the followers, and that thorough 
organisation in the whole body which arise out of the 
presence of a common and pressing danger. Whether any 
form of Brahmaism will be found sufficient for the spiritual 
needs of a considerable portion of the Indian population, 
and whether the usual miraculous legends which accrete 
round the early history of religious movements, will make 
their appearance in connection with the initial struggles of 
any of the Brahmic Churches, time will show. But it may 
be safely predicted that unless such legends do spring up 
and flourish vigorously, the Brahma reformation will not 
give rise to any new and popular religion in India. 

The austere tenets of the Sadharan Brahma Samaj 
preclude any such possibility in connection with that sect. 
But the MaharsJii Debendra Nath might well become the 
semi-divine centre of a future Hindu sect of importance ; 
and in Keshub's case the circumstances are more favourable 
and the probabilities of legendary developments still greater. 
Indeed, it seems to me that should it come to pass, when the 
haze of years casts a dim veil over the personality of the 
prophet, that his followers pay him divine honours as some 
have done already, then a Keshubite religion may attain a 
vigorous growth and possibly endure when the other Brahma 
sects have either been completely reabsorbed into Hinduism, 
or been refined into some one or other of the forms of 
Unitarianism or Eationalism established in Europe or 
America. 

Socially considered, the Brahmic movement in its later 
developments is of importance, as it encourages the disso- 
lution of the barriers of caste, staunchly and practically 
encourages the remarriage of widows, and makes it a 
professed object to raise the intellectual status and improve 
the social position of Indian women by giving them a 
freedom which the orthodox party would not for a moment 
countenance. And as I write this I call to mind how years 
ago the leader of the Sadharan Brahma Samaj at Lahore 
pointed out to me the adult unmarried ladies of his house- 
hold, walking about unveiled in the gardens of beautiful 
Shalamar. The party of ladies was certainly not attended 
by members of the opposite sex, and probably before the 

154 



THEISM IN BENGAL 

complete emancipation of the Hindu female from the 
seclusion of the zenana can be safely carried out, and free 
social intercourse between the sexes allowed, "the moral 
tone of native society," as Babu Shib Chunder Bose has 
remarked, "must be immensely raised, its manners and 
customs entirely remodelled, and its traditional institutions 
and prescriptive usages thoroughly purified." ^ But the fact 
that the gentleman I refer to had the courage to have adult 
unmarried daughters, and to allow them to go about 
unveiled, proves sufficiently that the views and opinions 
of the Brahmas are not merely theoretical, but actually 
affect their habits and customs. 

Of course social reforms cannot be carried out without 
opposition and reviling, and I have heard orthodox Hindus 
affirm that the Brahma sects were chiefly recruited from 
amongst men who were of low caste, or had through some 
cause or other lost social position, that, in fact, those who 
now give their warm support to the Brahmic movement are 
just such as a generation ago would most probably have 
been driven into the arms of Christianity. 

One most important aspect of the religious situation 
remains to be noticed. I refer to the poioerful reaction in 
favour of Hinduism created by a spirit of opposition to 
Christian and Brahmic teaching, and strongly stimulated by 
the political discontent of recent years. 

" There was a time," says an Indian journal, " when 
Brahmoism was regarded to be the only possible 
religion for every educated Hindu, who was eager to 
be loyal to his conscience. The untenableness of 
idolatry, judged from the liberated intellectual and 
spiritual standpoint of every man of culture, was 
made so clear and unmistakable by the labours of 
the Brahmo Samaj, that it was a disgrace to be an 
idolater. Unhappily this healthy public opinion has 
not lasted. In direct opposition to the teachings of 
the Hindu Shastras, which set down idolatry as only 
a low form of worship, fit only for the ignorant and the 
uncultured, a new cult has been founded which openly 
and defiantly dignifies idolatry into the only possible 
and practical form of religious worship, easily exciting 

^ Shib Chunder Bose, The Hindoos as they are, p. 7. 



BRAHMANS, THEISTS, AND MUSLIMS OF INDIA 

true religious emotion and developing genuine Bhakti 
or divine love. Again, there is another section of our 
educated countrymen who uphold Adwaitism, or the 
philosophical Pantheism of Sankaracharya. 

" The reasoned idolatry and the abstract pantheism 
of the day which count among their votaries a large 
proportion of those Hindus of education and culture 
whom the Brahmo Samaj at one time hoped to attract 
to its fold, constitute the two prominent modes of 
rampart religious thought which it has at present to 
combat." ^ 

The reaction referred to in the passage just cited is not 
a mere revival of the old Hinduism. The awakened mind of 
educated India will never revert to the veritable past, but 
will find temporary satisfaction for its religious needs in 
a reformed but progressive Hinduism, modified in many 
respects, but always haunted and even dominated by its 
essential old-time ideals. 

With respect to the spiritual influence of the Brahmic 
Church, it doubtless extends far beyond the limits of its 
own professed adherents ; but we need to guard ourselves 
against an exaggerated idea of the importance of this new 
religious and social reformation, which, after all, represents 
only one of the many results produced by Western thought 
acting upon the mind of India, Another and very necessary 
caution to be borne in mind is that the glowing narratives 
of Brahma successes, of religious awakenings, of passion- 
ate zeal and so forth, which may come from interested 
parties, should not be accepted too literally. " What we 
wrote did not represent what we did. Our writings ex- 
ceeded our lives," was the confession which Keshub once 
made in a letter to Miss Collet, and would in all probability 
be appropriate in the mouths of most Brahma writers and 
statisticians. 

The attitude of Brahmaism to Christianity is a subject 
of great interest to many earnest men. At one time the 
Christian missionaries appeared to think that Keshub was 
doing their work for them, and that the reformer himself 
would eventually come into the Christian fold. This was one 
reason why he was made so much of by Europeans of all 

^ Taltwahodhini Patrika, vol. xv. part i. 
156 



THEISM IN BENGAL 

classes. Even now some Christian missionaries regard 
Brahmaism as but a step on the road to Christianity, but I 
am by no means of that opinion. 

Whatever may be the modifications produced in Indian 
ways of thought and in the sentiments and customs of the 
people, by the stimulating contact of Western literature, 
philosophy, science, and religion, it may be safely predicted 
that the inherited tendencies of the people of India are too 
strong, and their national beliefs too subtle, comprehensive, 
and deep-rooted, to allow of their breaking away in any 
notable degree from their immemorial past. Under existing 
political conditions at any rate the religious evolution of 
the vast Hindu population will, I believe, take place along 
the already long-established lines of pantheism and yoga 
philosophy. 

Brahmaism as a national theistic Church may, in one 
form or another, possibly have a future; but if foreign 
Unitarians, whether English or American, succeed in im- 
posing their austere occidental views upon any considerable 
proportion of the Brahmas, and, aided by their money-bags, 
are able to assume the guidance of the Brahmic movement, 
it will acquire an exotic character, become unpopular, and 
inevitably die of inanition. 



15; 



SOCIAL 

REirORM 




158 



CHAPTER IV 

HINDU SOCIAL 
KEFORMERS 

Introduction. — 
Forces in opera- 
tion tending to 
bring about 
changes in Hindu 
social life. 

'0 many stimulat- 
ing forces of 
extraneous 
origin, such 
various cul- 
ture-influences 
have come into 
operation 
throughout the 
land, so many- 
novel ideas are 
circulating there, 
so much criticism 
sometimes just, 
sometimes super- 
cilious and too 
often foolish, has 
for many years 
past been lav- 
ished upon the 
Indian social 
fabric, whether 
Hindu or Mus- 
lim, that a crowd 
of reformers both 
wise and unwise 
have, as an in- 
evitable conse- 



HINDU SOCIAL REFORMERS 

quence, come into existence. For men who love notoriety, 
for speakers who desire to advertise themselves and are 
fairly pushing and thick-skinned, the role of the reformer 
is everywhere a congenial one, and present-day India 'has, 
perhaps, more than a fair share of such men. Besides 
these fussy self-seekers, there are others of another and 
better type, reasonably anxious for moderate changes in 
Hindu social customs to suit the altered times, and modestly 
doing what they can within their limited sphere to accom- 
plish this end. 

Europeans, impatient of the political aspirations of the 
Hindu people, direct attention to the wide field for urgent 
social reforms which Indian society provides, and in their 
zeal for the improvement of their " fellow-subjects " these 
well-wishers indulge in highly coloured contrasts between 
Western and Eastern customs, necessarily to the disadvantage 
of both Hindus and Muslims. Naturally the restrictions 
imposed by caste afford convenient texts for these alien 
reformers, and give occasion for much ill - considered 
speaking and writing addressed to the Indian native public. 
To give examples : The other day I found it stated or rather 
implied in a reputable Calcutta newspaper, desirous of im- 
proving native social arrangements, that Englishmen may 
marry where they please, and eat where and how they 
please; while the trained official, freeing himself for the 
nonce from the trammels of red-tape, lays it down with 
authority, in a State document too, that, " In the West 
the field from which a man can choose his wife is 
practically unlimited." (Census Eeport, p. 421.) But is 
all this quite true ? Is the ordinary Englishman really 
so blessed ? Is he so absolutely free ? Without losing 
sight of the disabilities due to the Hindu caste system, 
we may be permitted to ask whether the Englishman, be 
he Hodge, or John Smith, or Mr. Aubrey de Vere, or the 
Marquis of Landsend, can marry into any class he likes ? 
Whether his chance in matrimony (not always his choice) 
is not ordinarily confined simply and absolutely to such 
women of his own class, within the small circle of his 
pe7'sonal acquaintances, as may be disposed to accept his 
advances ? We may press the matter further and inquire 

159 



BRAHMANS, THEISTS, AND MUSLIMS OF INDIA 

whether it is not true that both men and women in 
England, notwithstanding the unlimited field of selection 
with which they are credited, often cannot get mated at all, 
even with the irregular help of matrimonial agencies. As 
to Englishmen being able to eat where and how they please, 
surely the anonymous writer I have quoted above, and 
taken perhaps too seriously, was thinking of Hampstead 
Heath on a Bank-holiday. 

After all, the West is not quite so free from social 
restraints nor the East so enmeshed in them as some seem 
to think. It is not all blissful equality and happy social 
freedom on one side of the world and all hateful social 
tyranny on the other. Limitations and restrictions are 
essential features of social life everywhere, only the limita- 
tions and restrictions are not quite the same in the Occident 
as in the Orient. This is a point worth bearing in mind 
while studying the problems presented by Indian life. 

Playing up to the party who advise the Indians to 
busy themselves with social rather than political questions, 
is a class of educated Hindus, conscientious men I dare 
say, not very numerous, it is true, but useful in their 
way and, happily for themselves, so thoroughly in sympathy 
with English official opinion that they cannot escape the 
appreciative attentions or the special rewards of a dis- 
criminating government. 

Some of these, with almost touching confidence in the 
wisdom of their foreign rulers, seem desirous of placing their 
native reforming propaganda under the aegis of the British 
Government, suggesting to this end the formation of a 
special Imperial Legislative Council to deal with social and 
religious questions under the guidance of the Viceroy. But 
I fancy the good judgment of the rulers will keep them free 
from any such council, now or hereafter. 

Last, but by no means least, amongst Indian reformers 
are certain important Indian feudatory princes and a few 
influential territorial magnates whose position and nationality 
enable them to profess and carry out reforms with less 
offence to the susceptibilities of their people than would be 
possible in the case of alien rulers. 

So much for the reformers who are assailing from 

1 60 



HINDU SOCIAL REFORMERS 

various points, with divers motives, dissimilar aims and 
different degrees of force, the fortress of long-established 
Hindu customs. But this ancient stronghold, built as it is 
on the rock of religious ordinances and traditions, supported 
by national sentiment and guarded by a powerful hereditary 
priesthood, is not likely to yield any positions without an 
obstinate defence. Indeed, we find that the reformers are 
everywhere confronted by a strong body of Hindu conserva- 
tives opposed to social changes, holding that innovations of 
every kind should be vigorously resisted, since departures 
from old ancestral practices have a tendency to revolution- 
ise and even disintegrate society. This anti-reform party 
is not only recruited from the ranks of the more backward 
orthodox Hindus, but even from amongst the young men 
who have been educated in the State and other schools and 
colleges of the day. For the attitude which these educated 
Indians take against sweeping social reforms one reason at 
least is obvious and quite natural. It is the feeling that 
whatever may be the defects of these social institutions, 
they have stood the test of time and need not be hastily 
modified. In addition to this natural if not quite sufficient 
reason against introducing changes into Hindu customs 
there is, I know, a strong conviction in the minds of most 
educated Indians that European modes of life, particularly 
in regard to social intercourse between the sexes, are by no 
means free from many serious shortcomings and dangers too, 
which would inevitably appear and be seriously magnified 
in any purely Indian community which might be remodelled 
upon existing Western lines ; and it is undoubtedly in the 
Western world that would-be reformers do mostly find the 
ideals which inspire their reforming zeal, however much 
they may try to conceal this fact from their fellow-country- 
men. Further, the pride and patriotism of a vast majority 
of both Hindus and Muslims rebel against the thought of 
admitting that their national habits and customs, based on 
religious sanctions, are in any way inferior to those of their 
European masters. 

However, under the existing political conditions of 
Indian life which bring the people into perpetual contact 
with the alien civilisation, religion, and literature of a 
L i6i 



BRAHMANS, THEISTS, AND MUSLIMS OF INDIA 

powerful and dominant race, modifications of ideas and 
changes of customs are inevitable. For my own part, I 
must confess that an adequate treatment of this import- 
ant and complex subject is entirely beyond me; yet 
I nevertheless hope that the particulars embodied in 
this chapter will give the European reader a fair idea 
of the direction in which contemporary Indian social 
reformers are working for what they consider social 
improvement. I also hope to be able, at the same time, 
to direct attention to some of the results of the new 
awakening. 



162 



HINDU SOCIAL EEFOEMEES 

— continued 

Section I. — Reformers in Council. 

^MPERFECTION being inseparable from human 
institutions, the true reformer has never lacked, 
and will never at any time lack, opportunities of 
exercising his important if often thankless vocation ; 
but the reforms preached and fought for at any- 
given time and in any particular place are 
necessarily peculiar to and characteristic of the period and 
the country, and so naturally throw a flood of light upon 
the condition and civilisation of the people amongst whom 
they are advocated. 

Fully appreciating this fact, I was glad when representa- 
tive men from all parts of India assembled in the capital 
of the Punjab, primarily to discuss political questions, but 
willing at the same time to air their views on the most 
pressing social problems of the day. 

As a pendant to the National Congress held at Lahore 
in 1893 for the furtherance of the political aspirations of 
the educated classes, there was a great Social Conference 
of delegates from the four quarters of the land, affording 
me a long-desired and excellent opportunity of learning 
what India was thinking about in regard to the great 
questions of social reform which had come to the fore 
in recent years, and I did not fail to attend the Con- 
ference for enlightenment on the present social needs of 
Aryavarta. 

From a preliminary notice issued by the General 
Secretary, Social Conference, Madras, to the Secretaries of 
Social Eeform Societies throughout the country, I learned 
that resolutions would be proposed embodying the views of 

163 



BRAHMANS, THEISTS, AND MUSLIMS OF INDIA 

the Couference in regard to many reforms which seemed 
desirable in existing native customs. 

The meeting was held in a huge thatched pavilion called 
" the Pandal," specially erected for the National Congress, 
provided with bent-wood chairs for four or five thousand 
persons. Though the place had been crowded during the 
political meetings of the Congress, the gathering for the 
Social Conference did not exceed one thousand or at most 
twelve hundred persons. Before the proceedings of the 
day commenced I took stock of my surroundings, and 
noticed that by way of decoration a number of coloured 
glass globes had been hung from the framework of the roof, 
that red and green flags, and some shields with the British 
coat of arms emblazoned on them, had also been used to 
give a festive aspect to the pavilion. As a silent, visible 
declaration of loyalty to the Government, there was placed 
near the tribune a portrait of the Queen-Empress. 

Old Mr. Dadabhai Naoroji, M.P., looking limp and 
worn-out, attired in his national Parsee costume, wearing 
loose maroon-coloured trousers and one of those peculiar 
Parsee hats so familiar in Bombay, sat on the platform, 
an embodiment of helpless discontent. Over him was 
held an umbrella to keep off the rain, which was leaking 
in everywhere, through a very imperfectly constructed roof. 
To such a degree were the audience incommoded, that 
Mr. Naoroji's umbrella was only one of many which were 
opened in the building. The scene, if quaint, was also 
very characteristic and decidedly depressing. 

Only one Hindu lady graced the meeting with her 
presence. Dressed in print skirt and white chaddar, she 
sat on the platform with a little girl beside her, the two 
representing the fair sex on that occasion. As the business 
of the day, conducted entirely in English, went on, the 
lady, apparently wearied by the proceedings, of which she 
probably did not understand a word, quietly drew up one 
slender leg and then the other on the seat of the chair she 
occupied, covered herself with her chaddar as completely 
as possible, and composed herself to sleep, disdainfully 
regardless of the social problems of the day. After a 
while her slumbers were disturbed by rain-water leaking 

164 



HINDU SOCIAL REFORMERS 

upon her from above, when some native gentlemen politely 
made a little room for her to shift her chair to another 
spot. Though the lady did not evidently appreciate the 
work of the Conference, she afforded many speakers that 
day the opportunity of saying " Ladies and Gentlemen." 

All classes of the Hindu community, official and un- 
official, were represented in the audience : from a Judge of 
the High Court of Bombay to quite junior clerks in Govern- 
ment and railway offices ; from prosperous landed gentry 
to petty shopkeepers. 

The proceedings were most orderly and business-like, 
but I missed the note of genuine earnestness throughout. 
Two important addresses were read — one by Dewan 
Narindra Nath, M.A., a gentleman of private means and 
holding an important official position in the Punjab; the 
other by Mr, Justice Eanade, of the Bombay High Court.^ 
No doubt the speakers had thrashed out the subjects scores 
of times before, and while they spoke were uncomfortably 
conscious of the dead weight of ancestral prejudice and 
feminine conservatism which refused to be moved or 
modified by all their well-meant endeavours up to that 
moment. 

As a result of the deliberations of the Conference, a 
dozen resolutions were carried after the usual speeches, and 
afford a glimpse of the many very important points which 
are engaging the attention of present-day reformers in 
India ; for they embrace such questions as the following : 
Temperance, higher female education, infant marriage, 
extravagant expenditure at weddings, the remarriage of 
widows, intermarriage between sub-castes, and the improve- 
ment of the Hindu joint-family system. There were also 
resolutions touching foreign (beyond sea) travel, loud 
mourning at funerals in the Punjab, naughty nautch girls, 
and the prevention of conflicts between Hindus and 
Muhammadans in connection with religious processions 
and observances. Further, as bearing directly upon the 
business of the Conference, it was resolved that " social 

^ Both of these addresses are given in full in a bulky volume entitled 
Indian Social Reform, edited by C. Yajnesvara Chiutamani (Thompson 
& Co., Madras). 

165 



BRAHMANS, THEISTS, AND MUSLIMS OF INDIA 

reform funds" should be raised by social and other 
associations, and applications made to Government to 
exempt such associations from the operation of the rules 
laid down in Act VI. of 1882. 

These resolutions afford good examples of the nature 
of the subjects which are engaging the attention of con- 
temporary social reformers in India. Some of the matters 
taken up were, however, of merely local interest; for 
example, the question of the Siapa system of mourning 
aloud and beating the chest vigorously which prevails at 
present in certain parts of North-Western India. Others, 
again, were undoubtedly inspired by political rather than 
social considerations, the one, for instance, which relates to 
disturbances between Hindus and Muhammadans. That 
this was the case, the speeches I listened to left no doubt 
in my mind ; certain speakers insidiously hinting that 
they k7iew where the real fomenting forces of these disturb- 
ances were to be found, but they had been advised not to 
speak on this point, and refrained from doing so. The 
impression which these orators wished to leave on the 
minds of the audience was that the Government itself 
desired to secretly encourage, for its own advantage, 
dissensions and divisions between the two great religious 
sections of the Indian community. 

One result of the Conference must have been to 
strengthen the hands of the local reformers, for it would 
enable them to quote, in support of their labours, the 
deliberately expressed and authoritative opinions of men 
of culture and position in Hindu society drawn from all 
parts of India. To this extent, at any rate, the work of 
the Conference would be neither futile nor ineffectual. 

A feature of more recent Congresses has been an 
Industrial Exhibition, which, hov/ever excellent and useful 
in itself, cannot but distract attention from the main 
purposes of the Congress, and tend to make of it a great 
annual tamasha (entertainment). " So much the better," 
many will say or think; but the yearly Conference is an 
institution of supreme importance to India, and it is to be 
hoped that its distinctive character may be preserved and 
its usefulness be increased and not impaired. 

1 66 




HINDU SOCIAL KEFOEMEES 

■ — continued 

Section II. — A typical reformer — A Yogi lecturer on " How to make a 
dead man alive." 

' OLLO WING the plan I have dehberately adopted 
of bringing the reader, as often as possible, 
face to face, as it were, with living men and 
their doings, I now invite him to meet a typical 
present-day Indian reformer, and with his help 
to consider once more a familiar evil presented 
in a new and peculiar setting. 

A lecture by a certain Sivami of the sect of the Yogis, 
was publicly announced, the subject, as stated on the bills, 
being, " How to make a dead man alive." A Yogi — perhaps 
a Mahatma ! — on such an important matter was irresistible, 
so without hesitation I resolved to attend the meeting and 
profit by the Yogi's wisdom. 

Swami-ji appeared upon the platform at the appointed 
hour, with long wavy black hair carefully combed and oiled, 
a full black beard and a somewhat abstracted look. He was 
well clothed in flowing garments of an orange-yellow colour, 
and altogether looked very different from the Yogis with 
whom I had long been familiar. 

When introduced to the audience, he stood up with his 
eyes shut and passed his hand over his face. After a long 
pause he began, in English, a prayer to God, addressing 
Him always as " Dear Lord," praising Him and asking His 
blessing for the chairman, the audience, and the speaker 
himself, in phrases that would not have been strange in the 
mouth of a very ordinary dissenting minister, or a free 
lance amongst Christian preachers of the less educated sort. 
Following the prayer came the lecture, also in English, 

167 



JBRAHMANS, THEISTS, AND MUSLIMS OF INDIA 

delivered in slow, measured tones, and with an ample use 
of polysyllabic words, badly mispronounced. 

Having made the allusions to John Stuart Mill and 
Herbert Spencer, which one must be prepared for on such 
occasions, the Swami warmed to his work. He told us 
his mission was to war with a destructive demon, a terrible 
devil who was in the midst of us, and was preying upon 
the life of our dear Mother India, adding with a mysterious 
intonation and appropriate gesture that the demon foe 
was in that very room even while he was speaking to us. 
" But," exclaimed Swami-ji emphatically, " I shall presently 
drag him before you, and you shall judge him for 
yourselves." 

The Swami next narrated a story of the Mogul Emperor 
Akbar and his " legislative council." The famous monarch, 
said the lecturer, once asked his councillors whether they 
knew any way by which a dead man might be brought to 
life. One replied, " My Lord, I think this feat is not beyond 
the powers of the science of our great doctors at Con- 
stantinople. Let me go thither and learn the art and I 
will come back and answer your Majesty." Another 
councillor expressed the opinion that the secret of such 
wonderful power was known only to the Egyptians, adding 
that, if permitted to do so, he would go to the land of 
Egypt and learn what the great king wished to know. 
Akbar was too impatient to be satisfied with such answers, 
and sent off at once for his wise Hindu minister Kajah 
Birbul. When Birbul presented himself at the Imperial 
Durbar, the Emperor put the same question to him that 
he had addressed to the other councillors. But instead 
of replying, the astute Hindu begged for time till the 
next morning to give his answer. Birbul retired to his 
magnificent palace to think the matter over, and "the 
Emperor sought his cosy couch, or rather his hot and rest- 
less bed," for he could not sleep in his anxiety to learn what 
the wise Eajah Birbul's answer would be. " The cock, the 
herald of the morn, in due time awoke the whole world," and 
Akbar commanded Birbul to his presence. The sage Hindu 
appeared, and commenced by telling the king that there 
lived ill his dominions a terrible demon, a malignant fiend, 

1 68 



HINDU SOCIAL REFORMERS 

who destroyed great numbers of his subjects, and that if he 
could be controlled or driven away a great many dead people 
would become alive again. This information gave rise to 
the following dialogue : — 

Akhar. Is it so ? Can this be possible ? 

Birhul. Alas ! it is too true. 

Aklar. In what cave or forest does this demon live ? 

Birhul. Sire, he lives neither in a cave nor in a forest, 
but in a small, narrow, crystal palace of his own. 

Aklar. In a crystal palace ; and in my dominions ? 

Birhul. Yes, my Lord, in your own dominions and in 
this very city. 

Akhar. What ! here ? and I not know about it. Who 
are his relatives, what is his name ? 

Birhul. His relatives, your Majesty, are many, such as 
Debility, Disease, Impotence, Insanity, Debauchery, and 
Crime. His name is one made up of only four letters. 

Akhar. What four letters ? 

Birhul. W, I, N, E. 
At which the audience cheered and laughed loudly, tickled 
at Akbar's famous minister spelling the demon's name in 
letters of the English alphabet to his august master. 

In the midst of the hilarious applause the Swami 
produced from under his chaddar, I think, something 
wrapped in paper, and gradually removing the covering 
disclosed to view a bottle made of clear transparent glass, 
which seemed to contain some reddish-coloured syrup. With 
creditable dramatic power he exclaimed, " Here is the Demon 
in his crystal palace ! Here is the enemy of our beloved 
mother India ! I have dragged him before you ! Behold the 
Monster ! " Then changing his tone, " No," he said, cuddling 
the bottle, " this is Old Tom, who is the dear friend of so 
many of us," and then, regardless of the verities, went on 
excitedly to speak of it as whisky and brandy, using it as 
a symbol for strong drink. Holding up the bottle with its 
reddish-coloured contents, Swami-ji asked, "Has this no 
virtues ? " and answering his own question said, " Oh yes, 
it has its virtues, as Eajah Birbul told the Emperor It 
has these virtues that he who takes it long is not visited 
by thieves, he never grows grey, and he is not likely to 

169 



BRAHMANS, THEISTS, AND MUSLIMS OF INDIA 

get hydrophobia, because he usually carries a stout stick to 
support his tottering limbs." 

Leaving his figures of speech and turning to prosaic 
details, the lecturer told us how drink had been the curse 
of many of the best men in India, and particularly so in 
his beloved Bengal, where some of the leading men, whom 
he did not hesitate to name, had fallen victims to drink.^ 

The lecturer wound up his address with a story to 
which he requested our special attention, and which, 
whether original or not, is good enough to bear repetition. 
It was this : 

An orthodox Hindu went on a round of travels — of 
course without a penny in his pocket — and one day resting 
under a tree saw in the distance what looked like a 
magnificent building. "Brother," he asked a passer-by, 
" what place is that ? " " Mr. Traveller, go and see it," 
was the reply. " Can I enter it ? " " Yes, surely." " And 
what is the charge for admission ? " " Oh ! nothing at 
all." 

So "Mr. Traveller" girded up his loins, took his staff 
in his hand and proceeded towards the palace. When he 
approached it, he noticed that it had four splendid gates, 
each of which was guarded by an armed sentinel. He 
presented himself at the nearest gate and asked permission 
to enter. The door-keeper com-teously assured him that 
he might do so, but only on one condition, and that an 
easy one indeed. " You see," continued the sentinel, " this 
platter in my hand. It contains a savoury dish of meat — 
the flesh of dogs — you have only to eat this and pass in." 

" Oh, horror ! what, I an orthodox Hindu and a vegetarian 
to eat the flesh of animals and worse still of dogs. Tliat 
is abominable even to think of. I cannot do it. Is there 
no other way, Mr. Sentinel, of obtaining admission to the 
palace ? " " Try the next gate," was the gruff response. 

To the next gate went our orthodox vegetarian traveller. 
In reply to his inquiries, the sentinel on duty slyly pointed 
to a little boy who was playing not far off, well dressed, 
and covered with jewels, and told the traveller that if he 

^At the conchision of the lecture, Swami's statements in this respect 
were flatly contradicted by some Bengali gentlemen who were present. 

170 



HINDU SOCIAL REFORMERS 

would kill the child and help himself to his ornaments he 
might pass in to view the lovely palace. 

" What ! commit both murder and robbery ? Never ! 
Never ! " said the horrified visitor, and passed on to the 
third gate. Here he found a beautiful woman sitting near 
the sentinel. 

The modest lecturer felt that he could not utter before 
his " august audience " the shameful act which the traveller 
was invited to do. Suffice it to say that the orthodox 
Hindu hurried from the spot, and without looking back 
presented himself at the fourth and last gate. In a genial 
way the sentinel assured him that admittance could be 
easily obtained at his gate. He need only drink two 
chhatdnks ^ of brandy out of the cup he held in his hand and 
might then pass in. 

But Mr. Orthodox Hindu turned sadly away and went 
back to the shade of the tree. He pondered the matter, 
and still eagerly curious to see the inside of the magnificent 
pile which stood before him, combated the conscientious 
scruples which had been raised in his mind by the sug- 
gestions of the four sentinels. "After all," he concluded, 
" there is not so much difference between water and brandy, 
which latter is only grape-juice " ; so he finally returned to 
the fourth gate, drank the brandy and obtained admittance 
to the palace. 

When he came out he was singing merrily, and wanted 
more brandy ; the sentinel at the gate declined to give him 
any more ; but advised him to buy what he required at the 
public-house. 

" 1 am a mere traveller," said the orthodox Hindu in 
surprise, " and have no money. How can I buy brandy ? " 
" Very easily," was the reply. " Go to the second gate, 
murder the child you saw there, take his ornaments and 
purchase what you crave for." 

Our orthodox, but now fallen, Hindu traveller, acting 
upon this suggestion, com-mitted both murder and robbery, 
and satisfied his longing for more drink. Presently feeling 
hungry, he ate and enjoyed the dish of dogs' flesh he had 
previously declined, and after that filled up the measure 
^ Chhatdnh — A two- ounce weight. 
171 



BRAHMANS, THEISTS, AND MUSLIMS OF INDIA 

of his crimes by committing that other sin at the third 
gate which he had before resisted, and rolling on the 
ground in a disgraceful, insensible condition, found himself 
in the gutter. 

It was an instructive parable we had heard that after- 
noon, and I need not point out that while battling in the 
good cause of temperance, as so many Westerns are 
doing to-day, the Yogi lecturer had a style and a method 
peculiarly his own, and yet very racy of the Indian soil. 

Intemperance, as I have often been told by Indian 
gentlemen, has in recent years been on the increase 
amongst the better educated classes. As Indians of what- 
ever social rank do not associate with Europeans, do not 
except on rare occasions eat and drink with them or even 
meet them on a friendly social footing, it is evident that 
the growth of habits of inebriety amongst the natives 
cannot well be attributed to the bad example of Europeans, 
and must be due to other causes ; probably to the excite- 
ment and unrest which are undeniable results of contact 
with the strenuous ideals and modes of life and work in a 
hustling money-grubbing age like ours. 

A rather curious encouragement to drink, in India at 
the present time, is the belief that ardent spirits act as a 
plague prophylactic. Perhaps alcohol in moderation is a 
preventive against this fell disease. I cannot say, but the 
belief amongst the natives is probably due to the immunity 
from plague generally enjoyed by the European community 
in India. 

In every considerable town in the Punjab there are 
Temperance Associations, and I presume they would not 
exist if they were not needed. The Sikhs in the Native 
States have also taken up the question of Temperance 
very seriously. 

In all the Provinces of India the same activity prevails. 

"Apostles of Temperance" from Europe, aided by 
Christian missionaries, have given a great impetus to the 
formation of Temperance Societies and Total Abstinence 
Associations, which, with local differences, are conducted 
upon the main lines adopted in Europe and America. 
These societies and associations hold meetings, have 

172 



HINDU SOCIAL REFORMERS 

lectures and addresses, encourage pledge -signing, organise 
processions with bands playing and banners flying, arrange 
for the public singing of temperance ballads in the 
vernacular, and the circulation of tracts illustrating the 
evils of drink. They further arrange for the performance 
of temperance plays, one of which I had the pleasure of 
witnessing in the native theatre at Amritsar, and a toler- 
ably good play it was, setting forth in Hindu dramatic 
fashion the evils of alcoholism. Of course winged peris 
(angels or fairies) were amongst the dramatis personam, and 
curiously enough some of the temperance hymns introduced 
into the play were set to once popular English airs, such 
as " Sweet Dreamland Faces " and " Wait till the Clouds 
roll by, Jenny." 

Though equally demoralising in its results whether in 
the East or the West, drunkenness in India can, however, 
at times put on a complexion impossible in Europe; for 
Indian inebriates with the religious zeal of their race have 
actually been known to worship the bottle. A few years 
ago it came to my knowledge that an Indian clerk being 
suspected of certain fraudulent transactions, a sudden raid 
was made upon his residence by the police in order to 
secure, if possible, documentary evidence against him. His 
papers were seized, and amongst them were found an extra- 
ordinary collection of photographs, in which he and some 
of his friends appear worshipping the whisky bottle, or in 
all sorts of Bacchanalian attitudes with the bottle being 
drained, and so on. I am sorry to say that I never had 
the chance of seeing the photographs, nor have I had them 
properly described to me. But it is quite possible to 
imagine the young topers standing round a table, with 
garlands about their necks and bottles arranged before 
them. The host, high priest for the occasion, would be 
crowned with flowers and ornamented with patches of red 
lead or other such pigment. Standing in respectful atti- 
tudes before the bottles the worshippers would probably 
sing a hhajan or hymn appropriate to the occasion, and 
then go in for a real good carouse. 

Without religion in everything the Hindu cannot appa- 
rently get on at all ! 

173 



BRAHMANS, THEISTS, AND MUSLIMS OF INDIA 

Like the rest of the world, the people of India have, 
unfortunately, their own drink difficulty, and must face it 
with all the weapons they can command. The Temperance 
movement in India of which I have been writing is by no 
means premature, and it has one very important feature 
which gives it more than ordinary significance, for in it 
are united, as a matter of course, all classes of the com- 
munity — Hindus, Muhammadans, and Christians. It is a 
cause which can for a special purpose and a common object 
draw together into harmonious action all ranks and creeds, 
and so far is an instrument for bringing about united effort, 
the value of which from a political point of view is not, 
I am sure, undervalued by the local wire-pullers. 



174 




HINDU SOCIAL EEFOEMEES 

— continued 

Section III. — The reform of marriage customs the special aim of 
certain reformers. 

MONGST the subjects dealt with in the resolu- 
tions of the Social Conference already referred 
to, those relating to infant marriage and the 
remarriage of widows deserve serious atten- 
tion, lying as they do at the very root of 
Indian family life. 
In most countries and in all ages women have been 
looked upon by men as desirable possessions, and in the 
olden time, all the world over, wives had been obtained 
by capture at great personal risk, by purchase at varying 
prices according to circumstances, by service extending 
perhaps over many years, and sometimes — markedly so 
amongst certain European races — by open and honour- 
able courtship. But in India for ages past a girl-child 
has been looked upon as so worthless that female infanticide 
was the commonest of crimes in that country. Even 
to-day in India a girl is so undesirable an addition to a 
family that no one would think of congratulating a parent 
on the birth of a female child, and her unhappy father has 
in due course to give the highest dowry he can possibly 
afford in order to find her a husband, which he is bound to do 
under the most terrible social and religous penalties. When 
he has done what the law requires of him, and has perhaps 
beggared himself in the doing of it, he may never, so it is 
enjoined, cross the threshold of his daughter's new home or 
partake of a morsel of food or a drop of water in her house.^ 
With such ideas pervading Hindu family life, the posi- 

^ Shib Chunder Bose, The Hindoos as they are. 



BRAHMANS, THEISTS, AND MUSLIMS OF INDIA 

tion of the woman has not been an enviable one, and 
it is not surprising that, under the influence of Western 
civilisation brought to their doors, efforts have been made 
from within to ameliorate the condition of these sufferers 
from long ages of unjust treatment. 

Various questions of social reform have consequently 
been brought into public discussion rather prominently 
within recent years, giving rise to much controversy 
between the progressives inoculated with Western notions 
and the old school of orthodoxy ; the discord being especi- 
ally pronounced where the proposed departures from time- 
honoured customs affected the position and obligations of 
women in the Hindu social system, 

Not many years ago a peculiar warmth was imported 
into these discussions, and a powerful impulse given to 
the movement for social reforms, by the intrusion into 
the arena of a non-Hindu native of India, who, well aware 
of the facts connected with the existing and widespread 
customs of infant marriage and enforced widowhood, urged 
the pressing necessity for reform on both these points. 
The outsider referred to, Mr. Behramji Malabari, a Parsee 
journalist of Bombay, devoted himself with rare energy 
and determination to the removal of what appeared to him 
to constitute palpable evils in Hindu social life. 

Through the medium of the Press, also by means of 
lecturing tours and even by direct personal appeals to 
the highest British authorities, this gentleman created a 
great sensation, stirring up Hindu society to a remarkable 
degree, and, as might have been expected, exciting no in- 
considerable amount of ill-will against himself. Not that 
Mr. Malabari was the pioneer in this cause. Many worthy 
Hindus of great ability and good social position had 
preceded him, and many were working contemporaneously 
towards the ends he had in view ; but the burning, unresting 
zeal and public methods of the Parsee outsider attracted more 
general attention to the cause he had at heart than the 
more languid efforts of Hindu reformers, themselves 
hampered by dread of caste penalties and restrained by 
natural tenderness towards the feelings and prejudices of 
loved and venerated relatives and friends. 

176 



HINDU SOCIAL REFORMERS 

While many leading Hindus were brought by Mr. Mala- 
bari's crusade against infant marriage and enforced widowhood 
to a full realisation of the cruelty and manifold harmfulness 
of these customs, there were others so irritated by his 
attacks upon their ancient well-established social life as to 
resent his intermeddling in their affairs, and to vigorously 
deny both the accuracy of his facts and the validity of his 
conclusions. 

The consideration of such matters, affecting as they do 
the happiness and reputation of Hindu households, could 
not be carried on without glancing for confirmation, or 
otherwise, at life outside the Indian zone. Contrasts 
between European and Indian modes of life were inevitably 
dragged into the discussions, accusations, and recrimina- 
tions which arose out of these delicate questions. The real 
or sentimental status of women in the West and the East 
respectively were compared by angry scribes, who, as a 
rule, were ill-informed or wanting in judgment. Hindu 
conservatives, represented mostly by certain Bengali 
journals, used their ingenuity in this controversy to point 
out and to exaggerate the imperfections of European 
society in its treatment of women, and these critics were 
answered according to their lights by the advocates for 
reform amongst their own countrymen. 

One result of this journalistically conducted warfare 
about social reforms has certainly been to bring before the 
world a large number of important facts, very welcome to 
European students of India, whether official or other, relat- 
ing to Hindu home-life and the condition and treatment of 
Hindu women in our time, and it has also made clear the 
estimation in which the weaker sex is held by both educated 
and uneducated Indians at the present day. 

Echoes of the strife soon penetrated even to the seclusion 
of the zenanas, and in many a quiet home the spirit of 
rebellion has thereby been stirred up in the hearts of 
women longing for the emancipation which is being promised 
to them by the prophets of this reforming age. 

Interesting cases arising, without doubt, out of 
the dissemination of the new ideas have attracted 
public attention and evoked very conflicting sentiments 
M I yy 



BRAHMANS, THEISTS, AND MUSLIMS OF INDIA 

and judgments. As an example of this I may allude to 
the case of the girl- wife Eukhmabai, which came into the law 
courts. The facts are simply : Eukhmabai, a Hinduani, 
had been married in infancy (and, of course, without her 
consent) to one Dadaji Bhikhaji ; but the marriage had 
not been consummated. The husband, who is said to have 
been a worthless profligate, ruined in body and mind, was 
sensible enough, however, to be aware that his girl-wife, who 
had received some education and was also likely to inherit 
a little property from her grandmother, was an asset of 
some value. Such a wife, though hitherto neglected, was 
not to be lost sight of, so Dadaji called upon her to live with 
him under his uncle's roof. But the spirited girl's feelings 
revolted against the depraved fellow whom she did not 
know, and who had been no choice of hers, and she 
firmly refused to join him. Supported by his friends, 
Dadaji now resolved to invoke the assistance of the law 
to compel Eukhmabai to submit herself to his will. He 
therefore instituted proceedings against her, for the 
restitution or rather the enforcement of conjugal rights. 
The point at issue being the obligation involved in an 
unconsummated infant marriage, attracted in certain sections 
of Hindu society considerable attention at the time. Here 
were all the elements required to appeal on the one hand 
to the liberal sentiments of reformers generally, and on the 
other to excite the deep-rooted prejudices of an ancient and 
multitudinous community. The child-wife, whose consent 
had never been asked to the matrimonial alliance to which 
she had been made a party, discovered before the consum- 
mation of the wedding the utter worthlessness of the man 
to whom she had been linked. To become his wife in 
reality and share his home with him was hateful to her. 
Encouraged by the spirit of reform which was in the air, 
she resolved with rare courage to repudiate the alliance 
and to trust to the justice and liberal ideas of the alien 
rulers of her country to free her from the bonds in which 
she had been placed. Of course there were many to 
sympathise with the strong-minded girl in her revolt 
against the tyranny of custom, and when the English judge 
who first heard her case decided in favour of the girl-wife, 

178 



HINDU SOCIAL REFORMERS 

her friends were elated with the victory thus scored against 
the system of infant marriage, while orthodoxy was shocked 
and alarmed. The matter was not allowed to end there. It 
was carried to the Appellate Court, when, to the disappoint- 
ment of the reformers, the law was declared to be against 
Eukhmabai. No doubt this decision was correct and politic, 
but it was none the less deplorable. 

I am not aware whether the assistance of the police 
was invoked to force the rebellious girl into the arms of her 
husband. But this course was certainly open to Dadaji, and 
is by no means a rare occurrence in India. 

Because of the vastness of the country, hardly anything 
that can be affirmed about one part of India holds good, 
without ample qualification, for other parts of it, a point 
which should always be kept in mind in making general 
statements regarding the climate, the productions, or the 
people of the enormous territory under the sway of the 
Indian Viceroy. After making the necessary allowances on 
this account, the facts as regards infant marriage and en- 
forced widowhood in India may be briefly summarised as 
follows : — 

1. It is undeniably true that throughout India the 

marriage of very young girls from two to eight years 
of age, with equally young boys, or often with adults 
of any age, is a very common practice amongst 
Hindus.^ 

2. Equally true is it that (at least until recent 

legislative action by the Indian Government) even 
the consummation of the marriage has commonly 
taken place when the child-wife was perhaps no 
more than ten years of age. 

3. Hindu widows, however young, and even if virgins 

at the time of the husband's demise, are, as a 
general rule, unable, on account of stringent 
religious and social regulations, to remarry, 

^ The practice also prevails in a lesser degree, amongst Parsees and Indian 
Muliammadans, but it cannot be repugnant to the religious sentiments of 
the latter, since the Prophet of Islam married Ayishah when she was only 
nine years old. She was his favourite wife, and lived to the age of sixty- 
seven. 

179 



BRAHMANS, THEISTS, AND MUSLIMS OF INDIA 

although authorised to do so by British Indian law 
(Act XV. of 1856). 

4. Hindu widows, as a rule, are a despised class, and 

under the recognised rules of Hindu society are 
systematically exposed to great personal indignities 
and hardships. 

5. Despite reformers, there is an undoubted tendency at 

the present day amongst certain classes to adopt the 

above practices, although these may not hitherto have 

heen favoured by them. 

When we discover that the existence of such peculiar 

practices throughout the enormous area over which Hinduism 

holds sway is of very long standing, we are led irresistibly to 

the conclusion that they must have religious bases, and that 

the political and social conditions of the country must have 

favoured their prolonged continuance. 

We may therefore profitably seek to ascertain and note 
such information as may be available to throw light upon 
these points. 

For the better treatment of the subject we may deal 
separately with Infant Marriage and Enforced Widowhood, 
although, as we shall see, they are very intimately connected 
with each other. 



l8o 




HINDU SOCIAL EEFOEMEES 

— continued 

Sectiok IV. — Infant marriage. 

' E have it on the authority of Megasthenes 
V^ that in his time (306-298 B.C.) early 
marriages prevailed in India in the case 
of girls, who might be wedded when seven 
years old ; so that the contention that 
infant marriage is a comparatively modern 
institution in India is untenable. 

What countenance the Hindu codes have given to the 
early marriage of girls will appear from the following texts 
cited by a learned Brahman, Dr. J. N. Bhattacharjee, in 
support of infant marriage : 

1. " So many seasons of menstruation as overtake a 
maiden feeling the passion of love and sought in marriage 
by persons of suitable rank, even so many are the beings 
destroyed by both her father and mother : this is a maxim 
of law." — See Dayahhaga, chap. xi. sec. 11. 

2. Paitinashi says: "A damsel should be given in 
marriage before her breasts swell. But if she have men- 
struated before marriage, both the giver and the taker fall 
into the abyss of hell : and her father, grandfather, and 
great-grandfather are born insects in ordure." ^ 

Other unimpeachable authorities bear out the same 
views. In the Angir-dsmriti, which treats of ceremonial 
defilement and penances, it is said : 

" There is no atonement for a man who has intercourse 
with a Vrishali," i.e. a woman who has her courses before 
marriage, and even contact through inadvertence with the 

^ Dayaram Gidumal, LL.B., C.S., The Life and Life-work of Behramji 
M. Malabari, p. 246. 

i8i 



BRAHMANS, THEISTS, AND MUSLIMS OF INDIA 

husband of such a woman had to be atoned by ablution of 
both person and dress. It is also expressly stated in the 
same treatise that " the father, mother, and elder brother 
who tolerate a girl in her courses before marriage go to hell. 
A Brahman who will marry such a girl is not to be spoken 
of or admitted into society." ^ 

If these texts are accepted as authoritative by orthodox 
Hindus, then the religious basis of the custom of infant 
marriage is undeniable, and in such a case the Hindu 
reformer's position seems hardly tenable, unless he is 
prepared to stand up against both Brahmanical law and the 
influential priesthood who uphold it. But as the decision of 
the question hinges upon authorities and upon Sanskrit 
texts with their interpretations, there is of course abun- 
dant room for differences of opinion amongst lawyers and 
exegetists. 

I have before me a pamphlet by Professor Bhandarkar, 
C.I.E., entitled A Note on the Age of Marriage and its Con- 
summation according to Hindu Religious Laio, published in 
1891, when the controversy on these subjects was at its 
height. In this pamphlet infant marriage, as we under- 
stand it, is not opposed, as indeed it could hardly be with 
this text of Manu to support it — " A man thirty years old 
should marry a girl pleasing to him of the age of twelve 
years." But the position taken by Professor Bhandarkar is 
that " the Hindu religious law allows the consummation of 
marriage being deferred for three years after a girl attains 
puberty," that the texts which prescribe the Garhhddhdna 
ceremony which should immediately precede actual inter- 
course with the bride do not require that this ceremony and 
intercourse should come off on the occasion of the first 
monthly course, but leave the matter indefinite. Professor 
Bhandarkar's contention indeed seems to be that though 
infant marriage is unobjectionable, the consummation of 
marriage may lawfully be deferred till the wife is fully 
developed and capable of bearing a vigorous child. 

Needless to say these views did not meet with general 
acceptance, and gave rise to much angry polemics. Oppon- 
ents held strongly that according to the best authorities 
^ John Wilson, D,D., F.R.S., Indian Caste, vol. i. p. 365. 
182 



HINDU SOCIAL REFORMERS 

the GarhJiddhdna ceremony and intercourse with the bride 
should follow the very first proof of puberty, and could not 
be postponed to a later time without incurring unpardon- 
able sin. 

As opposed to the practice of infant marriage, the laws 
of Manu have been cited by the late Sir Monier Williams, 

" A girl," says Manu, " having reached the age of puberty 
should wait three years, but at the end of that time she 
should herself choose a suitable husband." — Manu, Book ix. 
verse 90. 

But Sir Monier Williams himself admits that " it is true 
that modern commentators maintain that this self -choice is 
only legal when there are no parents to give a daughter 
away," — an admission which deprives the text of much of its 
seeming importance. 

The late Professor Max Miiller, to whom we were 
accustomed to look for enlightenment on most matters 
relating to ancient India, maintained " that infant marriage 
has no sanction from either Sruti or Smriti." " Manu," he 
adds, " wishes a young man to marry when he may become a 
grihasta (householder), i.e. when he is about twenty-four 
years of age. As to the girl, she is to marry when she 
is fit for it, and that may vary in different climates."^ 
Obviously the interpretation of fitness for marriage in the 
case of the girl is just the very point at issue, and Professor 
Max Miiller, with all his Sanskrit learning, was of course 
not able to help us to a solution of the matter. 

When the subject we have been considering was before 
the Indian Legislature in 1871, and religious feeling was 
greatly excited especially in Bengal, the well-known Babu 
Keshub Chunder Sen, of the Brahma sect, issued a circular 
letter to a number of European and a few Native medical 
men, asking for an expression of opinion on the matter, from 
a scientific point of view. The opinions elicited, which were 
naturally in favour of adult marriage, are given in extenso 
in a volume on Indian Social Reform, published by Messrs. 
Thompson & Co., Madras. Physiological considerations 
necessarily dominated the views of the physicians, but there 
was some ill-considered writing indulged in about racial 

^ Life of Behramji M. Malahari, p. 202. 
183 



BRAHMANS, THEISTS, AND MUSLIMS OF INDIA 

deterioration and national decay resulting from the custom 
of infant marriage. As, however, the opinions on this special 
point were not based on any actual data whatsoever, their 
scientific value was not very high, and some of the writers, 
more especially Dr. D. B. Smith, were conscious of this fact. 
The Brahmans on their part thought, as they have long 
done, that in the Indian climate, and under the usual joint- 
family system obtaining in their country, the fit time for a 
girl's marriage is the attainment of puberty. 

Whatever room there may be for discussion upon this 
delicate point between reformers and Pandits, we may take 
it that general agreement, as a result of any such contro- 
versy, is neither likely nor possible. 

Meanwhile the weight of immemorial custom is on the side 
of infant marriage, and it is a curious fact that the fashion 
has a tendency now to become even more widespread than 
heretofore, owing partly to a spirit of revolt against innova- 
tions backed by non-Hindus, partly to a desire of the lower 
castes to imitate their betters, but more than all to the 
increasing stringency of the matrimonial market. Excep- 
tions, however, are not unknown amongst certain castes, 
the Kulin Brahmans of Bengal for example ; it having been 
ruled amongst them that " if the daughters of the first and 
second subdivisional classes of Bhanga Kulinas cannot be 
given in marriage to husbands of their own classes, they 
must remain unmarried." ^ 

Infant marriage in India, be it remembered, is an alto- 
gether different thing from what infant marriage if practised 
in Europe would be. For the comprehension of this very 
real distinction it has to be borne in mind that in India 
after the wedding ceremony has been duly performed the 
infant bride may still dwell with her parents for a while. 
It is true that she is actually transferred to the husband's 
home at a very early age ; but then the husband is usually a 
boy, and the husband's home is more often than not in a 
joint-family establishment consisting of a large number of 
persons or groups ruled and managed by an elderly female. 
Into this large household the child comes as a stranger, yet 
heartily welcomed by the inmates, and if not cursed with 

^ Dr. John Wilson, Indian Caste, vol. ii. p. 207. 
184 



HINDU SOCIAL REFORMERS 

unamiable qualities, she is likely enough to be happy. Un- 
fortunately, it often happens that girls being destined, under 
the infant-marriage customs, to leave the shelter of the 
paternal roof at a tender age, their fond but foolish mothers 
spoil them by over-indulgence while still at home, with the 
result that they pass to the care of the mother-in-law to be 
trained and broken into habits of usefulness, a process which 
may be, and no doubt often is, attended with bitter tears and 
many hardships. But if the picture which Miss Noble gives 
us, of the affectionate reception and tender treatment of the 
child-bride in a Hindu household, be a fairly accurate one, 
and Miss Noble speaks from personal observation, we may 
in ordinary cases reserve our compassion, and unconcernedly 
leave the child-wife to find her proper place in the house- 
hold to which her husband belongs.^ 

The premature consummation of the marriage of Hindu 
girls under tlie system we are considering is undoubtedly 
a very real objection to it, causing personal suffering and 
permanent injury in too many instances. That the Hindu 
lawgivers desired to place some restraint upon the too early 
consummation of infant marriage may be inferred from the 
fact that in the Angirasmriti it is laid down that " the 
chandrayana^ penance ought to be performed by all who 
eat in the house of a woman who had become pregnant 
before she is ten years of age." But disapproval so ex- 
pressed could not have much effect in restraining brutal 
passions, and it is gratifying to know that since Mr. 
Malabari's agitation, and the public controversies already 
referred to, the British Government in India has found 
itself in a position to afford a certain amount of protection 
to child-brides by an Act (passed on the 19th March 1891) 
in which it was laid down that the age of consent should at 
the lowest be twelve years, — an age which, the climate of 
the country and the habits of the people being kept in view, 
seems an adequate minimum at present. The passing of 
this measure was productive of very sore feelings on the 
part of the Hindus generally and especially in Bengal, as 
being an unnecessary interference with their customs and 

1 The Wch of Indian Life, pp. 34-36. 
^ Vide supra, p. 48. 

185 



BRAHMANS, THEISTS, AND MUSLIMS OF INDIA 

their religion, and I know that even Europeans have re- 
garded it as a piece of unwise legislation. However, its 
educative effect will, I have no doubt, be good in the long- 
run, and if it prevents needless suffering to innocent children 
it is certainly deserving of commendation. 

In connection with the subject of early marriages in 
India, the following extracts relative to Western Europe, 
particularly Italy and France, at the time of the Ee- 
naissance, will not, I think, be without interest : — 

" Very frequently the ' best ' marriages were 
negotiated by intermediaries more or less obliging, 
relatives or friends. Princes and princesses were 
married through the good offices of diplomatists. 
Indeed, ladies and gentlemen of the Court did quite a 
respectable trade in match-making, for a consideration. 

" But after all the task of marrying his daughter 
was essentially and especially one for the father. 

" Eor the most part, the father would be only too 
glad to wash his hands of the business. In every case 
he was in a hurry to bring matters to a head, and 
believed that in losing no time he was acting in the 
interest of his child. She was to belong wholly to 
another household, since it was a woman's lot to belong 
to her husband, and so it was well for her to enter 
upon her new life as early as possible, before she had 
formed ideas of her own, and at an age when the 
paternal household would not yet have set its stamp 
indelibly upon her. 

" In distinguished families, betrothal was by no 
means unusual at the age of two or three. At this 
tender age Vittoria Colonna was betrothed to the 
Marquis of Pescara. 

" Consummation usually took place at the age of 
twelve. That was a favourite age with the husbands ; 
though, according to the best judges, fifteen was the 
age when the physical charms were at their best, and 
the soul was most malleable — a view dating as far 
back as Hesiod and Aristotle. . . . 

" In vain did the French physicians implore the men 

in mercy to have a little patience, beseech them to wait 

at least until the fourteenth year : they demurred, for 

it was humiliating for a father to have a fifteen-year- 

l86 



HINDU SOCIAL REFORMERS 

old daughter on his hands : at sixteen they would have 
called it a catastrophe. Champier, one of the gravest 
of writers, proposed that after the age of sixteen young 
women should be provided with husbands by the State, 
on the lines of Plato's system. Some parents betrayed 
such haste to get their girls off their hands that they 
anticipated the ceremony, handing them over to their 
husbands-elect on the strength of a mere promise of 
fidehty." ^ 

Infant marriage amongst Hindus invites further investiga- 
tion. To say that it rests on the Hindu religious law is 
neither sufficient nor satisfactory. We desire to know more 
of its origin and of the advantages it offers, for without 
some inherent recommendations, it would not have been so 
widely adopted as it has been in India. Leaving then the 
Hindu law out of sight for the moment in order to view the 
matter on its own merits, we find it stated by its advocates 
that infant marriage has done an incalculable amount of 
good, inasmuch as it has prevented the immorality which 
admittedly prevailed when in some remote age adult marriage 
was the custom in India. They also deny that in practice 
it is attended with the sufferings and hardships which out- 
siders naturally attribute to it, although there is no denying 
that instances of such suffering and hardship do occasionally 
occur and even come to public knowledge in various ways, 
sometimes through the police courts. Both these pleas may 
be just, and I have no wish to controvert them ; but they 
are certainly not exhaustive, and though I am an outsider 
I take the liberty of offering the following suggestions as to 
the circumstances and considerations which have favoured 
the establishment of the practice of infant marriage in India, 
and have even specially stimulated it within more recent 
years. 

To my mind, then, after a study of the controversies 
which have raged round the question, infant marriages are 
and have been encouraged by the following causes : — 

1. Priestly greed. — Life, especially infant life, being very 
uncertain, the earlier the ceremony of marriage is performed 

^ R. de Maulde la Claviere, The Women of the Henaissance, translated 
by George Herbert Ely, pp. 25-28. 

187 



BRAHMANS, THEISTS, AND MUSLIMS OF INDIA 

the surer is the Brahman of his fees, and the same applies 
to the Garbhadhana ceremony. 

2. Alleged female frailty. — The deeply engrained belief 
in India that women are by nature utterly depraved 
naturally suggests a very early marriage, as that alone could 
ensure the bride reaching her husband in a state of physical 
purity. 

3. The constant splitting up of castes into sections between 
whom marriage is not allowed. — This ever-increasing sub- 
division of the castes has an obvious tendency to narrow 
the marriage market and to stimulate the competition of 
parents seeking suitable alliances for their girls, who, as 
explained already, onust he provided with husbands hefore 
attaining puherty. In support of this contention I may 
state that I have been informed by the best authorities 
that it is not an uncommon thing for a desirable man to 
have overtures of marriage made to him (or his guardians, 
if he be a minor) while his loife is breathing her last, and 
certainly before her body has been cremated. One such 
instance I learned direct from the lips of the eligible youth 
concerned. 

4. Poverty and rapacity. — In those castes, and there are 
a few such, wherein fathers or guardians are permitted to 
receiver money — really purchase money — from the bride- 
groom's family, the desire to obtain the price would be a 
direct inducement to hasten the wedding. 

5. The marriage brokers. — The professional match- 
makers whose business it is to discover suitable husbands 
for girls, may be trusted to exert all their persuasive powers 
to effect early marriages, for life being uncertain the sooner 
the ceremonies are performed the more certain the brokers' 
fees. 

6. Fashion and rivalry. — Fashion, that terrible task- 
mistress, having decided that early marriages are proper, what 
woman would not uphold the custom ? ^ When any post- 
ponement of the marriage of a daughter beyond the age of 
puberty is orthodoxly impossible, and when an approach to that 

^ The force of fashion has made child marriage common even amongst 
some Muhammadans in India, although there is no diflSculty under Islam 
about the remarriage of widows. 

i88 



HINDU SOCIAL REFORMERS 

critical period would seem to imply a difficulty iu obtaining 
a bridegroom, involving a reflection upon the status of the 
girl's family, what wonder that early marriages are so 
common. 

7. Feminine love of excitement. — This weakness, universal 
and very imperious too, finds lively gratification in the 
ceremonies, reunions, processions, and displays of the 
elaborate and often costly Hindu betrothal and marriage 
ceremonies, and the festivities which occupy not one but 
many days, weeks perhaps, and permit of a degree of 
freedom of intercourse not known at other times. 

8. Feminine yearning for power within the domestic 
circle. — Mothers-in-law, aunts-in-law, and sisters-in-law 
dwelling in a joint-family home are »all equally desirous 
that the brides who are to come and share the home with 
them should be children, indeed young children amenable 
to discipline and motherly handling. Probably this hand- 
ling is at times more severe than absolutely necessary. 

9. Carnality. — By no means the least important or least 
powerful of the influences which make for child marriage 
is the lust of men, for be it remembered that the Hindu 
widower may remarry over and over again, and at any 
age can have a child-bride. Moreover, if one wife fails 
to bring him issue he may marry a second one, while the 
joint-family system relieves him from the inconveniences 
which might have been his lot under other circumstances, 
since the young wife is not necessarily called upon to order 
and manage the household. Her elders do that and also 
help the inexperienced child-wife to rear her offspring. 

10. The fairly successful suppression by the British 
Government of the once very common practice of female 
infanticide is also a fact, perhaps in some cases an im- 
portant one, in the encouragement of early marriages. The 
number of girls in the matrimonial market has thus 
increased, and as a husband has to be found for every girl, 
the competition for desirable bridegrooms has become more 
keen, with the result of lowering the age of matrimony. 

No one who has lived in India and kept his eyes and 
ears open, no one who, without visiting India, has read any- 
thing of what I may call zenana literature, can have failed 

189 



BRAHMANS, THEISTS, AND MUSLIMS OF INDIA 

to become aware of many cases illustrative of the extreme 
cruelty, evil effects, and lifelong suffering resulting from 
the infant-marriage system, involving, as it does, in the eyes 
of Western peoples, a gross wrong, since the infants given 
in marriage are far too young to be really 'parties to the 
contract. 

Moreover, there are reformers who, while making the 
most of these facts, insist further that over and above 
the wrongs and sufferings of individuals, under the infant- 
marriage system, is the far larger and more important 
question of the deterioration of the race. It is held by 
these reformers that where child marriage prevails, the 
offspring of such unions must necessarily be puny and 
degenerate. This may be true, but nevertheless nature does 
to a great degree neutralise the evil by killing off the 
degenerate early issue of immature parents. It cannot be 
denied, I think, that Hindus of all classes throughout India 
are, as a whole, well formed and well grown, and, given 
sufficient food, are capable of enduring quite as much 
prolonged physical exertion as the peoples of most other 
countries. 

In view of the Hindu scriptural basis of infant marriage, 
and with so many other causes to bolster it up, it does not 
appear to me that the practice in question is likely to 
undergo any change in the near future. And the Legislature 
cannot wisely do much more than it has already done for 
the discouragement of the custom. 

It is true that infant marriage, when the bridegroom 
may be of any age, is directly responsible for a large pro- 
portion of widowhoods ; but the custom at least gives every 
girl a husband, which is far from being the case in the 
" catch-as-catch-can " system of the West. If we weep over 
the Hindu widows condemned to perpetual widowhood, we 
should not forget the old maids of the West, equally con- 
demned, by the stress and strain of an age of economic 
conflict, to a life of single unblessedness. 



190 



HINDU SOCIAL EEFOEMEES 

— continued 

Section V. — Enforced widowhood. 

•ST'^ CCOEDING to a custom which we know existed 

I ^ in India at least as far back as the fourth 

\l^^^^ century B.C., the Hindu widow was required to 

I 4- ■ mount the funeral pyre of her dead husband 

^ f and be cremated along with his corpse. If the 

husband died, at a distant place, the widow was, 

none the less, to be burned alive on a pyre by herself. 

For this practice, known as Suttee or Sati, the reason 
assigned by Strabo (circa B.C. 31-A.D. 21) was the necessity 
of protecting Indian husbands against their wicked wives, 
Indian women being much addicted to poisoning their lords 
with a view to other alliances. 

Sati would certainly be a very effective protection 
for husbands against such murderous practices, because 
the death of the husband would mean that of the wife 
also. 

Eeferring in another book^ to this explanation by 
the Eoman geographer of the origin of sati, I felt con- 
strained to remark that it was, no doubt, an unmerited 
calumny upon Indian women; but I find, not without 
surprise, that the same accusation is levelled at them by 
their own countrymen even at the present day.^ 

Under many easily conceivable circumstances it would 
not be either desirable or possible to enforce the cruel law 
of sati, and as an alternative it was ruled, probably from the 
earliest times, that the woman who did not undergo crema- 
tion with her dead husband should be compelled to lead a 

^ Indian Life Religious and Social, p. 165. 
^ The Life and Life-work of Bchramji M. Malahari, pp. 63, 64. 
191 



BRAHMANS, THEISTS, AND MUSLIMS OF INDIA 

life of rigid self-denial and suffer social humiliations almost 
intolerable. 

To the sati, " the virtuous wife," i.e. the wife who elected 
to perish in the flames which were to consume her husband's 
body, great honour was paid ; and high-born, high-spirited 
women did not hesitate to face the fire rather than the 
degrading alternative of the widow's miserable life. Con- 
sequently until the practice of widow burning was made a 
punishable offence by a British-Indian enactment passed 
by Lord William Bentinck in 1829, numerous satis occurred 
every year all over India.^ And long after the date of the 
ordinance in question the rite was freely practised in 
Hindu States outside the jurisdiction of the British power. 
One instance of this kind is the sati which accompanied the 
cremation of the body of Maharajah Kanjit Singh of the 
Punjab in 1839, when four of his wives and seven female 
slaves were burnt to death on the funeral pyre with the 
corpse of their lord and master. 

Aiding and abetting the performance of sati having, 
under British law, been declared a criminal offence, it has 
now become very rare. A few cases of sati do, however, 
still occur, and some have been reported within quite recent 
years. One, for example, was carried out in Behar in 
October 1904, and resulted in six men being sentenced to 
various terms of rigorous imprisonment, varying from nine 
months to five years. In March 1905, at a village some 
thirty miles from Ajmere, a Hindu woman followed her 
husband's corpse to the place of cremation, and when the 
funeral pile was ready and the dead body laid upon it she 
threw herself upon the corpse. Some one, amidst the great 
confusion and uproar which this act occasioned, ignited the 
pyre, and the woman, who made no attempt to escape, was 
burnt to death. Another sati took place towards the latter 
part of 1905 at Maypur, a village in the Punjab. A Hindu 
woman whose husband had died two or three years before, 

^ Sati ' ' would also fall under the definition of culpable homicide given in 
the Indian Penal Code, sec. 299, though by the 5th exception appended to 
sec. 300 it would not amount to murder." — " Legislation under Lord Mayo," 
by Sir James Fitzjames Stephen, being chap. viii. vol. ii. of Sir W. W. 
Hunter's Life of the Earl of Mayo, 



HINDU SOCIAL REFORMERS 

made a funeral pyre, set fire to it, and committiDg herself 
to the flames, died in the presence of a number of persons. 

In 1906 a sati occurred in Cawnpore and another in 
Calcutta. In both cases the widows, quite young women, 
set theii' own clothes on fire and so committed suicide. 

Although the rite of sati has been practically suppressed, 
the alternative, enforced widowhood, with its degrading 
accompaniments, still remains in force notwithstanding the 
legislative permission accorded, by Act XV. of 1856, to the 
remarriage of Hindu widows. 

However young she may be, the Hindu widow has from 
the moment her husband dies, not only to deplore the loss 
of a companion, perhaps a beloved companion and supporter, 
but she has also to take a position of utter degradation in 
the household where formerly she had an honoured place. 

In many parts of India it is customary a few days after 
the cremation of the husband to perform what may be 
called the ceremony of formally degrading the widow, when 
she has her head shaved by the barber and is deprived of 
the use of all her personal ornaments. Ever after that she 
is condemned to sleep, not on a bed, but upon a mat spread 
on the floor ; to have but one meal a day ; and to be excluded 
very strictly from all festivities and family gatherings. Not 
only is the widow degraded and set aside, but her very 
presence on joyful occasions becomes an actual offence, and 
her mere shadow is in certain cases unpropitious. 

Without doubt the lot of the Hindu widow thus stated 
is extremely hard, and it has afforded European women 
writers material for some very natural displays of feeling 
and sentiment over the sufferings of their unfortunate 
Indian sisters. But we must be cautious neither to wholly 
judge Indian institutions by European standards nor to 
gauge the feelings of Indian women in particular situations 
by those of European women if they could now be placed in 
similar circumstances. Women reared in the semi-religious 
atmosphere of Hindu society are in all probability able to 
accept the widow's position as the decree of fate, and to bear 
with equanimity the tyranny of an immemorial custom, 
particularly when it allows of no exceptions and is most 
onerous in the case of the best-born. The calamity of 
N 193 



BRAHMANS, THEISTS, AND MUSLIMS OF INDIA 

widowhood is no doubt received by the Hinduani just as the 
infliction of an incurable disease might be. There is no way 
out of it, and this fact almost compels patient endurance. 
Besides, there must be a large proportion of cases in which 
the widow is too strong in character, or too well placed, to 
allow of her humiliation being anything more than nominal, 
especially so when she is the mother of sons devoted to her, 
or when she is the possessor of wealth of her own. Then 
again, there must at all times be instances innumerable 
in which the natural tenderness of relations and intimate 
friends greatly mitigate or even mollify the cruelty of the 
widow's situation. Often it is not so, and then the wretched 
sufferers, according to age and the circumstances of each 
case, take refuge in religion ; are driven to suicide, or, when 
very young, fall into immoral courses involving perhaps 
repeated infanticides and other heinous crimes. 

In this connection I may cite the following painful and 
characteristic instances reported in the Indian Spectator, 
a paper edited and managed by natives : — 

" The Hindu Widow and her Woes. — ' The Gujarati ' 
reports a case of infanticide at Jetpur in Kattywar. 
A 'high-caste' widow, long suspected by the police 
and closely watched gives birth to a child. The new- 
comer's mouth is immediately stuffed with hot kitchen 
ashes. Thus ' religiously disposed of ' and thrust into 
a basket of rubbish, its loving grandmother deposits 
the child into the nearest river. The village police 
then come to know about it. 

"A very similar case is reported to us from 
Viramgaum ; high-caste widow, new-born baby, and hot 
ashes, though no mention is made of the loving grand- 
mother or the basket of rubbish. Three persons are 
implicated in the former case. It must be remembered 
that the mother is very seldom a party to the ' act of 
merit.' After all it is her child, flesh of her flesh. In 
the Jetpur widow's case, we may say she is no more a 
murderer than is the head of the local police. The 
father of her unclaimed child, whom your humane 
English law never thinks of calling to account, is the 
prime mover with the widow's parents and caste-people 
as his accomplices. So cleverly is the affair managed, 
that hardly one case out of twenty can be detected. 

194 



HINDU SOCIAL REFORMERS 

In most cases the child dies before birth. The patient 
is removed far from her home, on a visit to a friend, or 
on a pilgrimage, and there she is absolved of the burden 
of sin. She is lucky if she escapes with permanent 
injury to the system, for the village surgeon is but a 
clumsy operator. If less lucky, she succumbs under 
the operation. But least lucky is the widow whose case 
does not yield to the manipulations of the Ddi. And 
woe be to her if she belongs to a respectable family. 
Then they get up a ceremony in her honour, what they 
call a cold Suttee, they serve her with the best viands, 
they ply her with sweet intoxicants, and they cap her 
last supper on earth with something that will settle 
their business. The widow is soon a cold Suttee, and is 
forthwith carried off to the burning ground, — the pious 
Hindoo cannot keep a corpse in his house ten minutes. 
This cold Suttee means a double murder. Let us hope 
it is a very rare practice. But a case is known where 
the widow suspected foul play in the midst of the 
nocturnal festivities in her honour. She turned 
piteously to her mother and asked to be saved, but she 
was thus urged in reply : 

" ' Drink, drink, my child, drink to cover thy 
mother's shame and to keep thy father's abru (honour) ; 
drink it, dear daughter, see, I am doing likewise ! '" ^ 

Infanticides committed in order to escape disgrace are 
unfortunately not unknown in the West; but nothing 
analogous to the ceremony of the cold Suttee could be 
possible outside India. 

In strange contrast with the austere severity of senti- 
ments which could culminate in the tragic rite of a " cold 
Suttee" it may be mentioned that sometimes widows are 
actually encouraged, as amongst the Tulava Brahmans of 
Southern India, to take to "prostitution in the name of 
religion." ^ 

Eegarded from any point of view, the cremation of 
Hindu widows with the bodies of their dead husbands was 
a decidedly barbarous practice, and the same may be said of 
the formal degradation of Hindu widows and their perpetual 

^ Dayaram Gidumal, LL.B., C.S., The Life and Life-ivork of Behramji 
M. Malabari, pp. cii and ciii. 

- Dr. John AVilsou, Caste in India, vol. ii. p. 70. 



BRAHMANS, THEISTS, AND MUSLIMS OF INDIA 

exclusion from the ordinary pleasures of life. Either 
practice, if justifiable at all, can be so only on the plea which 
has actually been put forward, that as a rule Hindu wives 
desirous of forming new alliances would not hesitate to 
poison their husbands, and as a matter of fact commonly 
did so in the days before the sati and its alternative were 
enforced. 

This charge of old standing, dating back at least to the 
beginning of our era, and unhappily not yet withdrawn, 
would, if true, reflect so seriously upon the virtue and 
moral character of Indian women, and at the same time 
point so unmistakably to gross tyranny on the part of the 
men driving their wives to deliberate murder, that I 
prefer to regard the accusation in question as at least 
not proven. We are therefore constrained to look for other 
causes. 

The roots of the custom known as the sati are to be 
sought in a barbarous age at a time when it was considered 
— as indeed it is at the present day amongst certain West 
African and other tribes — that the spirit of a departed 
chief or other prominent personage should be attended and 
ministered to by the spirits of his wives and slaves. 

Human sacrifices being once established as part of the 
funeral rites of chiefs and kings would, in ordinary course, 
be regarded as a mark or proof of rank, power, position, or 
influence. Every family which claimed to be of any im- 
portance would desire to include human sacrifices amongst 
the funeral ceremonies adopted by it; and if it were 
fit that some near and dear to him in life should attend 
the deceased in spirit-land, who more necessary or acceptable 
to him than his wives and female slaves. 

Fashion and the rivalry of tribes, clans, and families 
would tend to make the practice of widow burning a 
comparatively common one, though at no time could it 
have been general. 

Thus established in the old-time and hallowed by hoary 
custom as an indication of superior respectability, widow 
burning would, in later and less barbarous times, be duly 
encouraged and justified by convenient religious texts, 
extolling the virtue of the willing victim and exalting the 

196 



HINDU SOCIAL REFORMERS 

rewards of her self-sacrifice. Common-sense reasons would 
also be given in support of an obviously inhuman custom, 
and the poisoning propensities of Hindu wives, which may 
have had some foundation of truth, would be one of these, 
appealing very strongly to the cowardly selfishness of 
men. 

Certainly sati relieves the dead man's family from the 
burden of maintaining his widow or widows, a fact to which 
that famous jurist Sir Henry Maine attached special im- 
portance, as having tended greatly to perpetuate the cruel 
custom. 

After having been practised in India for over two 
thousand years, widow burning has been suppressed by the 
strong hand of a foreign Government ; but there is every 
reason to believe that even now it would be revived in 
many parts of the country if the laws against it were 
abrogated or suspended, and it is evident that while such 
feelings on this point continue to exist amongst Hindus 
generally, any considerable amelioration of the condition 
of the widows is yet afar off. 

However, it cannot be denied that at least some Hindus 
are beginning to realise sympathetically, in a way hitherto 
unknown, the unmerited tribulations and sorrows of the 
widows of their community. As the outcome of this senti- 
ment a movement to countenance widow remarriage has 
come into existence ; but it meets with strenuous opposition 
from the orthodox priesthood and from the great body of 
women, who look to the priests for guidance. Consequently, 
although there have been and are many individual advocates 
for widow remarriage throughout India, although there 
are many Widow Beviarriage Associations in the country, 
and matrimonial advertisers in the interest of the same 
cause are not wanting, yet the conservative opposition to 
the movement is so strong that the results up to the present 
time are small, though as a beginning they may be considered 
encouraging. For example, one Widow Eemarriage Associa- 
tion of Upper India was recently able to report that under 
its auspices forty-seven marriages of widows had taken 
place in one year, most of these amongst respectable Brah- 
man families. But even in small sects like that of the 

197 



BRAHMANS, THEISTS, AND MUSLIMS OF INDIA 

Brahmas which have cut themselves off from orthodox 
Hinduism, the cause of the widows has had little if any 
success. 

As already stated, the remarriage of a Hindu widow is 
permitted by British Indian law, so that no legal objec- 
tion to such a step exists ; but the religious sentiment or 
prejudice of the Hindu community unfortunately renders 
the law almost a dead letter. 

Actuated by motives not always meritorious, some few 
persons, defying the public opinion of their society, do, 
however, under the aegis of British law, venture to act up 
to their professions in respect to the propriety of widow 
remarriage, and such marriages are duly chronicled by the 
Indian Press, as in the following cases, for the encourage- 
ment of others : — 

" A widow remarriage of an advanced type took 
place in the City under the auspices of some Arya 
gentlemen on Tuesday evening. Both bridegroom and 
' bride ' are of a mature age, and the latter has a 
child by a previous husband." — Tribune (Lahore), 17th 
February 1894. 

"A widow marriage took place at Bhera on the 
19th January 1894 between Bhai Hira Singh Bohra, 
aged about 35, and Eaj Devi, a Khatri widow, aged 20. 
It was also a case of intermarriage. It was chiefly 
owing to the efforts of Malak Hans Eaj Anand, who, 
as secretary of the Anand Sabba, takes a deep interest 
in social reform questions. That he was successful in 
persuading even the Sanatan Pandita to take part in 
the marriage is a sign of the times." — Tribune (Lahore), 
21st February 1894. 

" Under the auspices of the local Arya Samaj, a 
widow marriage of considerable public interest has 
been performed in Amritsar. The bride is the widowed 
daughter of a zealous Arya, and the bridegroom a 
respectable young man of Kaithal. A large number 
of guests were present at the marriage." — Pioneer Mail, 
(Allahabad), January 1906. 

If I am not misinformed, parties contracting these 
marriages usually suffer such serious persecution of many 
kinds that their fate has been a warning, instead of an 

198 



HINDU SOCIAL REFORMERS 

encouragement, to others disposed to disregard the strongly- 
maintained views of the caste to which they belong. Some 
fifteen years ago it came to my knowledge that an influential 
and very learned Bengali gentleman had been instrumental 
in eifecting some fifty widow marriages, with the result that 
he had the pleasure of supporting all the happy couples, 
for it was only to secure this kind support, and on condition 
of receiving it, that bridegrooms could be found for the 
widows. There is no denying that caste persecution in such 
cases has ample justification in the precepts of the Hindu 
law-books, for Manu has laid down that amongst the persons 
to be carefully shunned are " the husband of a twice- 
married woman and the remover of dead bodies." Yet 
some instances, very rare ones it is true, are known in 
which the remarriage of widows is actually permitted, for 
example amongst the Audichya, Barada, and the Sinduvala 
Brahmans of Gujarat; while the Tags Brahmans of the 
Punjab take widows of their own caste as concubines, and 
so do the Brahmans of Nepal. Brahman widows are also 
known to find husbands outside their caste, and even outside 
their creed. On this point the Eev. J. Vans Taylor writes 
in connection with certain Gujarati Brahmans: "Widows 
are at once a loss to the population and their own castes. 
But Brahmanis sometimes become feeders to other castes. 
Many Kajputs, Kolis, Kulambis, and Musalmans (I know 
of one case even of a Bhangi) get Brahmanic widows as 
either their second or secondary wives." ^ 

To sum up the present situation. Under British law 
the Hindu widow may not be sacrificed or sacrifice herself 
on the funeral pyre; she may, if she can find a partner, 
marry again. But in obedience to the rules of immemorial 
custom, her second husband, herself, and any children born 
to them would in such a case in all probability be outcasted, 
an outlook which few care to face. 

As far as legislation goes, the British Government seems 
to have done what it could for the Hindu widow, but out- 
side the law much may reasonably be done by the State for 
these unfortunates, as I shall point out later on. 

^ Dr. J. Wilson, Indian Caste, vol. ii. p. 122. 



199 














HINDU 
SOCIAL EEFOEMERS 

— continued 

Section VI. — Temple women. 



I ERTAIN Hindu reformers 
have recently invoked the 
interference of the authori- 
ties to abolish the custom, 
common in some parts of 
India, of marrying young 
girls to Hindu gods — such 
marriages being merely the prelude to a state of licensed 
prostitution in the service of religion. A memorial on 
this subject was, a few months ago, addressed to the 
Government of Bombay by Dr. Bhandarkar, C.I.E., of 
Poona, and about one hundred other influential natives of 
Western India, setting forth the notorious frequency of 
this evil practice, and praying that it may in future be 
officially regarded as an offence punishable under the Indian 
Penal Code. The memorialists also petitioned that the 
minors wedded to idols should be "placed in the care of 
proper guardians or in mission orphanages," a very significant 
and flattering testimony to the high esteem in which these 
establishments are held by some liberal-minded Hindus. 

With the caution which, as a rule, characterises the action 
of the British authorities in India where matters affecting 
the rehgious sentiments of the subject peoples are concerned, 
the Governor of Bombay gave orders for a preliminary 
series of inquiries to be carried out by certain Government 
officers, with the view of obtaining competent opinion in 

200 



HINDU SOCIAL REFORMERS 

regard to the law as applicable to such cases, and of 
ascertaining the state of Hindu public opinion on the points 
raised by the memorialists. We may patiently await the 
result, confident that if a fair proportion of the better class 
of Hindu society declare against the practice, the weight of 
the British Government will be thrown on the same side. 

It is hardly necessary to state that religious prostitution 
is not an institution of yesterday, nor peculiar to India. It 
was very common in ancient times amongst the Lydians ; 
and in Syria, Armenia, Chaldaea, and Egypt, a similar, or even 
more shameless cultus of unchastity was known. " Devoted 
women " attached to the great sanctuaries were familiar even 
to the Hebrews. " Keligious prostitution was not confined 
to the temples of Astarte, nor to the worship of female 
divinities. Numbers xxv. 1-5 connects it with Baal-peor ; 
Amos ii. 7, Deuteronomy xxiii. 17, 18, etc., show that in 
Israel similar practices infected even the worship of Yahwe 
(Jehovah). There is no doubt, however, that the cultus of 
Astarte was saturated with these abominations." ^ 

In India the religious prostitutes (devidasis) are conse- 
crated to the deity to whose temple they are attached. They 
are carefully trained in the Terpsichorean art and in music, 
and are taught how to make themselves agreeable and attrac- 
tive. Their public duty is to dance daily before the idol of 
the god and to sing hymns, often erotic in character, in his 
honour. Certain allowances are made to them from the 
temple treasury to which their earnings belong. 

"Their ranks are recruited by the purchase of 
female children of any caste, and also by members of 
certain Hindu castes vowing to present daughters to 
the temple on recovering from illness or relief from 
other misfortune. The female children of dancing- 
women are always brought up to their mother's pro- 
fession, and so are the children purchased by them, or 
assigned to the temple service by the free-will of their 
parents." — Sherring, Hindu Tribes and Castes. 

The existence of the custom of devoting girls to the service 
of Hindu temples, and all that is involved in such dedication 

^ Encydoimdia B'lblica, vol. i. c. 338. 
201 



BRAHMANS, THEISTS, AND MUSLIMS OF INDIA 

is, of course, well known to the Christian missionaries in 
India, who naturally condemn the shocking institution and 
bewail the fate of the girl-victims of this horrid practice.^ 

Unfortunately, prostitution seems to be a permanent 
institution all the world over, and especially rampant in the 
most civilised countries. It is an evil over which Chris- 
tianity has apparently been unable to exercise any effective 
check, and the restless Hindu reformer and the ardent 
Christian missionary may well bethink them whether, after 
all, prostitution sanctified by religion and under recognised 
control is not morally less harmful to all concerned than 
the prostitution which, in defiance of religion and law, not 
only pervades the slums but makes its flaunting presence 
unpleasantly conspicuous in the most fashionable thorough- 
fares of the populous cities of Europe and America. This 
view of the matter, though certainly very unconventional, 
may still deserve a moment's consideration from thinking 
men and responsible legislators. 

^ Amy "Wilson- Carmichael, Things as they are : 3Iission Worh in Southern 
India, chap. xxiv. 



202 




HINDU SOCIAL EEFORMEES 

— continued 

Section VII. — The old and the new woman. 

Life behind the Purdah. — 

one interested in India can be unfamiliar 
with the words p^crdah (screen) and zenana 
(women's apartment), both associated with the 
seclusion of women in that country, a subject 
on which much has been written. 

The visitor to India sees Hindu women of 
the lower orders everywhere; but women of the higher 
castes or of moderately good social position do not generally 
appear in public unveiled, and as long as they are virtuous or 
reputable, hold no social intercourse whatever with any men 
outside the family circle. Even within the family circle 
there are many male members with whom they may not 
so much as speak, and before whom they must not appear 
unveiled. 

Amongst the Muslims, also, women are kept in seclusion, 
in the harem. 

Now, however we may regard the matter, this seclusion 
is amongst both Hindus and Muslims a coveted mark of 
social superiority, and is accordingly highly appreciated by 
Indian women. It is by no means distasteful to them, as 
European women, reared under quite other social conditions, 
are prone to think. But it cannot be denied that within 
recent years the seeds of discontent have been introduced 
by foreign agencies into many Indian homes, and may be 
expected to bring forth fruit in due season. 

From those who have seen the inside of Indian home- 
life, we obtain accounts and opinions diverse indeed and, as 

203 



BRAHMANS, THEISTS, AND MUSLIMS OF INDIA 

might have been expected, both highly appreciative and 
entirely the reverse. Some Europeans writing on the 
condition of the female sex in India, cannot find words 
strong enough in which to denounce the degraded state of 
Indian women, while others find an almost ideal beauty in 
the life behind the purdah. 

A few quotations from the works of writers on the 
subject will suffice to make this point clear. 

"It may be said with truth," wrote the Abbe 
Dubois eighty years ago, " that so far are the Hindu 
females from being held in that low state of contempt 

and degradation in which the Eev. repeatedly 

describes them in his letter, that, on the contrary, 
they are under much less restraint, enjoy more real 
freedom, and are in possession of more enviable 
privileges than the persons of their sex in any other 
Asiatic country. In fact, to them belong the entire 
management of their household, the care of their 
children, the superintendence of the menial servants, 
the distribution of alms and charities. To their charge 
are generally intrusted the money, jewels, and other 
valuables. To them belongs the care of procuring 
provisions and providing for all expenses. It is they 
also who are charged, almost to the exclusion of their 
husbands, with the most important affair of procuring 
wives for their sons and husbands for their daughters ; 
and, in doing this, they evince a niceness, an attention, 
and foresight, which are not certainly surpassed in any 
country ; while, in the management of their domestic 
business, they in general show a shrewdness, a saving- 
ness, and an intelligence which would do honour to the 
best housewives in Europe. 

"In the meanwhile, the austerity and roughness 
with which they are outwardly treated in public, by 
their husbands, is rather a matter of form, and entirely 
ceases when the husband and his wife are in private. 
It is there that the Hindoo females assume all that 
empire which is everywhere exercised, in civilised 
countries, by the persons of their sex over the male 
part of creation ; find means to bring them under sub- 
jection, and rule over them, in several instances, with 
a despotic sway. In short, although outwardly ex- 
posed in public to the forbidding and repulsive power 
of an austere husband, they can be considered in no 
204 



HINDU SOCIAL REFORMERS 

other light than as perfectly the mistresses within the 
house. 



" The authority of married women within their 
houses is chiefly exerted in preserving good order and 
peace among the persons who compose their families ; 
and a great many among them discharge this important 
duty with a prudence and a discretion which have 
scarcely a parallel in Europe. I have known families 
composed of between thirty and forty persons, or more, 
consisting of grown sons and daughters, all married 
and all having children, living together under the 
superintendence of an old matron — their mother or 
mother-in-law. The latter, by good management, and 
by accommodating herself to the temper of her 
daughters-in-law ; by using, according to circumstances, 
firmness or forbearance, succeeds in preserving peace 
and harmony during many years amongst so many 
females, who had all jarring interests, and still more 
jarring tempers. I ask you whether it would be 
possible to attain the same end, in the same circum- 
stances, in our countries, where it is scarcely possible 
to make two women living under the same roof to 
agree together." ^ 

Very different from the good Abba's picture of Indian 
home-life is the following, from the pen of Dr. Emma 
Eyder of Bombay, who, in a paper entitled "The Little 
Wives of India," said : 

" In coming to India I expected to find women and 
girls that would much resemble those I had seen in 
other tropical countries — in Mexico, Central America, 
and on the Isthmus of Panama — healthy, with dark 
faces and laughing bright eyes. I can never express 
the sadness of heart that I experienced when I met 
these half-developed women, with their look of hopeless 
endurance, their skeleton-like arms and legs, and saw 
them walking the prescribed number of paces behind 
their husbands, with never a smile on their faces. I 
expected the little girls in India would be the same 
precocious, strong, fully developed girls that I found 
in other tropical countries; and how great was my 

' The Abb6 J. A. Dubois, missionary in Mysore, Letters on the State of 
Christianity in India, pp. 182-185, (London, 1823.) 

205 



BRAHMANS, THEISTS, AND MUSLIMS OF INDIA 

astonishment to behold the little dwarf-like, quarter- 
developed beings, and to be told that they were wives, 
and serving not only their lords and masters, but the 
mothers-in-law, and often a community or family of 
ten, twelve, fourteen, or twenty. Talk of maturity 
for these little creatures ! They can never come to 
full maturity, for they were robbed before they were 
born, as were their ancestors. If they could have 
proper exercise, with all the food they need, and above 
all, if they could be made happy until they were 
twenty-five years old, it might not be a sin for them 
to give birth to an immortal soul." 

Eeferring to the Hindu husband, the same lady says : 

" If I could take my readers with me on my round 
of visits for one week, and let them behold the con- 
dition of the little wives, it would need no words of 
mine to send you forth crying into this wilderness of 
sin. If you could see the suffering faces of the little 
girls, who are drawn nearly double with contractions, 
caused by the brutality of their husbands, and who 
will never be able to stand erect ; if you could see the 
paralysed limbs that will not again move in obedience 
to the will; if you could hear the plaintive wail of 
the little sufferers as, with their tiny hands clasped, 
they beg you to ' make them die,' and then turn and 
listen to the brutal remarks of the legal owner with 
regard to the condition of his property ; if you could 
stand with me by the side of the little deformed dead 
body, and, turning from the sickening sight, could be 
shown the new victim to whom the brute was already 
betrothed, do you think it would require long argu- 
ments to convince you that there was a deadly wrong 
somewhere, and that someone was responsible for it ? 
After one such scene a Hindu husband said to me, 
' You look like you feel bad ' (meaning sad). ' Doctors 
ought not to care what see. I don't care what see, 
nothing trouble me, only when self sick ; I don't like 
to have pain self.' " 

To the sympathetic eyes of Miss Margaret Noble, the 
Hindu household is almost ideal. 

" All the sons of a Hindu household," says this lady, 
" bring their wives home to their mother's care, and she, 
206 



HINDU SOCIAL REFORMERS 

having married her own daughters into other women's 
families, takes these in their place. There is thus a 
constant bubbling of young life about the elderly 
woman, and her own position becomes a mixture of the 
mother-suzeraine and lady abbess. She is well aware 
of the gossip and laughter of the girls amongst them- 
selves, though they become so demure at her entrance. 
Whispering goes on in corners, and merriment waxes 
high even in her presence ; but she ignores it discreetly, 
and devotes her attention to persons of her own age. 
In the early summer mornings she smiles indulgently 
to find that one and another slipped away last night 
from her proper sleeping-place and betook herself to 
the roof, half for the coolness and half for the 
mysterious joys of girls' midnight gossip. 

"The relationship, however, is as far from famili- 
arity as that of any kind and trusted prioress with 
her novices. The element of banter and freedom has 
another outlet, in the grandmother or whatever aged 
woman may take that place in the community house. 
Just as at home the little one had coaxed and appealed 
against the decisions of father or mother to the ever- 
ready granddam, so, now that she is a bride, she finds 
some old woman in her husband's home who has given 
up her cares into younger hands, and is ready to forego 
all responsibility in the sweetness of becoming a con- 
fidante. One can imagine the rest. There must be 
many a difficulty, many a perplexity, in the new 
surroundings, but to them all old age can find some 
parallel. Looking back into her own memories, the 
grandmother tells of the questions that troubled her 
when she was a bride, of the mistakes that she made, 
and the solutions that offered. Young and old take 
counsel together, and there is even the possibility 
that when a mother-in-law is unsympathetic, her own 
mother-in-law may intervene on behalf of a grand- 
son's wife. 



" Long ago, when a child's solemn betrothal often 
took place at seven or eight years of age, it was to 
gratify the old people's desire to have more children 
about them that the tiny maidens were brought into 
the house. It was on the grandmother's lap that the 
little ones were made acquainted ; it was she and her 
husband who watched anxiously to see that they took 
207 



BRAHMANS, THEISTS, AND MUSLIMS OF INDIA 

to each other ; and it was they again who petted and 
comforted the minute granddaughter-in-law in her 
hours of home-sickness. Marriage has grown later 
nowadays, in answer amongst other things to the 
pressure of an increasing poverty, and it does not 
happen so often that an old man is seen in the bazaar 
buying consoling gifts for the baby brides at home. 
But the same instinct still obtains, of making the new 
home a place of choice, when between her twelfth and 
fourteenth year — the girl's age at her first and second 
marriages — the young couple visit alternately in each 
other's families." ^ 

The above somewhat lengthy extracts refer to the 
domestic life of the people of the territories of Madras, 
Bombay, and Bengal respectively, and at different periods. 
If we grant their substantial correctness, they would show 
how unwise it would be to draw general conclusions about 
the whole of India from any statements made by persons 
acquainted with only limited portions of that vast country. 
If the more favourable of these impressions of Indian 
home-life, recorded by Europeans of both sexes, reveal 
pleasant glimpses of amenities which we may reasonably 
hope are by no means rare, we are yet unable to forget 
the less satisfactory pictures of zenana life which mission- 
ary ladies have given to the world, and the more so in face 
of the multitudinous facts illustrative of domestic tyranny 
which Indians themselves, in their zeal for reform, have 
made public within the past few years. 

With such knowledge of the matter as is now common 
property, one cannot but feel that at the very least there is 
ample reason to desire the admission of more intellectual 
light into the Indian zenana, and the concession of more 
personal freedom to its inmates. But let us see what the 
Indian reformers are themselves thinking about. 

Female education. — When social reforms are in the air 
we may rest assured that men become keenly alive to the 
desirability of many improvements in the character, be- 
haviour, and customs of their women-folk; and since in 
recent years education has come to be regarded as the 

^ The Sister Nivedita (Margaret E. Noble), The Web of Indian Life, 
London, 1904, pp. 34, 35. 

208 



HINDU SOCIAL REFORMERS 

panacea for nearly all human ills and shortcomings, female 
education occupies, as we have seen already, a foremost 
place in the Indian reformer's programme. But the diffi- 
culties in the way of female education in India are immense, 
and little progress has yet been made in attracting girls 
and women to such schools as have been provided for 
them. 

According to the census of 1901-2, the number of girls 
in the secondary stage of instruction among one hundred 
thousand of school-going age was only about twenty-seven 
in the case of Hindus and about five in the case of 
Muhammadans — i.e., not three in ten thousand amongst 
Hindus, and only one in twenty thousand amongst Muslims. 

Hindu Scriptures are opposed to female education, not 
permitting women even to take part in the worship of 
Saraswati, the Goddess of Learning.^ Immemorial custom 
is equally unfavourable to female education in India. From 
Megasthenes we learn that the Brahmans did not permit 
their wives to attend their philosophical discussions, fearing 
they would divulge their secret doctrines, and also because 
instructed females would be prone to assert their independ- 
ence and desert their husbands. Early marriage is another 
difficulty and a serious one too, as Christian missionaries 
have often pointed out with regret, drawing painful pictures 
of bright child-wives longing for instruction, being removed 
from their happy mission schools to be immured in dull 
zenanas. 

Yet notwithstanding the immense disabilities under 
which they labour, many Indian women have already 
qualified themselves for and received the degrees in arts, 
science, law, and medicine of the Indian Universities. I 
have myself met some educated Indian ladies, mostly, I 
must admit. Christians or Parsees, and have been struck 
by the extreme modesty of their bearing. 

In respect to home education, European ladies who, as 
teachers, nurses, or physicians, gain access to the secluded 
homes of the better classes of the Indian community do 
not, as a rule, give encouraging reports with respect to a 
desire for education amongst the inmates of the zenanas, 
^ Shib Chunder Bose, The Hindoos as they are, 

o 209 



BRAHMANS, THEISTS, AND MUSLIMS OF INDIA 

and they deplore the disinclination of the purdah nasheens to 
adopt modern Western habits, which in the eyes of European 
ladies generally constitute an absolutely indispensable factor 
of true civilisation. 

Indian gentlemen who write on the same topic are 
often not more hopeful. One great obstacle to zenana 
teaching by European ladies is the wide gulf which lies 
between Oriental and Occidental ideas upon most matters, 
and even upon essential points. For example, to quote an 
educated Punjabi gentleman : " The ladies {i.e. Hindu ladies) 
know and believe it, as a maxim, that to remain dirty is a 
religious duty, a Bahu Bati should never be dressed neat 
and clean like a Kanchan-mangan " ; and yet, " women who 
have the dirtiest possible dhoti as their dress keep telhng 
their clean and respectable European teacher at every 
minute to be careful not to touch them." ^ 

What female education is expected to do for India is 
set forth in the following speech made by the Gaekwar of 
Baroda at the Alexandra Girls' School, Bombay, on the 30th 
March 1904. His Highness said : 

"The greatest difference in Eastern and Western 
conditions is our lack of real social life. This is both 
the cause and effect of defective education, for educa- 
tion is not a reality without some interchange of ideas. 
On the other hand, until our women are more educated 
we shall not break through their splendid isolation — 
isolation which we cannot too strongly condemn if we 
find it retarding the mental and physical development 
of our women and men. While our lack of social life 
is a great deficiency, it robs us of some of the strongest 
bonds of national union, for it accentuates all petty 
caste restrictions. It is also intensely narrowing, for 
we meet our neighbours too much on a business or 
official footing, while, on the other hand, our home 
interests are too purely domestic. It is this gap 
between the details of the household and our work 
which our women can help us to bridge over. It is 
this widening of the interests at which we have to aim 
— the broadening of woman's views on life in every 

^ From a lettei- to an Indian newspaper on "Teaching in the Zenana," 
by Piyare Lai, B.A., teacher, Central Model School, Lahore. 

2IO 



HINDU SOCIAL REFORMERS 

respect — so that she may be better fitted to order her 
own household, to look after her children, to make her 
home more beautiful and attractive, to widen out the 
interests which surround the home, until they can 
include her neighbours, so that social life may become 
a reality and so stretch out to national life, and so 
enable the woman to bear her full share in the develop- 
ment of the race and the future of India. I would 
even allow the new woman, however shocking the 
heresy may sound, to find her own level, and to prove 
for herself the reality of the claims she has made for 
equality. We need women to play a stronger part in 
our national life for many reasons, and I would venture 
to remind you that under the more strenuous conditions 
of Indian social life which prevailed not so very long 
ago, our women took a larger and more active part in 
our national life. In the disintegrating conditions of 
our present society they are not playing that part. 
And there is another point to which I wish just to call 
your attention. I do not think our present society 
exerts sufficient influence on public and private morality. 
I fear that we judge a man too much by his adherence 
to customs and forms, and too little by his real 
character. It is women's influence which we need to 
help us to build up strong public opinion on these 
matters, an opinion which will work towards a higher 
standard of social purity. I do not think we shall be 
able to insist on one method to attain these ends, nor 
do I recommend that we should hastily adopt European 
methods because they are successful in Europe. I do 
not believe that all our old customs can be entirely 
valueless, nor, on the other hand, are they valuable 
merely because they are old. But we need some touch- 
stone to apply to them, to show us which is the gold 
and which is the dross of ignorant superstition which 
has gathered round them. Such a touchstone educa- 
tion must supply." 

The Gaekwar's address shows how much is expected 
from female education in India. It is to promote social 
intercourse, break down caste prejudices, widen life's 
interests, improve public and private morality, and create 
or strengthen bonds of nationality. 

We may be permitted at least to hope that some of these 
sanguine anticipations may be realised at a future time. 

211 



BRAHMANS, THEISTS, AND MUSLIMS OF INDIA 

Women advocates of %vomen's rights. — As I have pointed 
out in a previous page, the demand for even elementary 
education on the part of females has, as yet, been very 
slight indeed, although a few women have actually graduated 
with credit at the Indian Universities. Yet it is a remark- 
able fact that, in spite of old-time ideas and prejudices, 
Indian women are themselves coming forward publicly to 
advocate their own cause and that of their neglected sisters. 

Some years ago it was my good fortune to listen to one 
of these advocates of women's rights. It was on the occa- 
sion of a public meeting at the Deva Dharma Mandir, 
Lahore. 

For me the attraction of the evening was an address 
by a native lady on " Home Life." The hall was a newly 
built one about 50 feet by 25 feet in the clear. At one 
end the room was double-storeyed, both ground floor and 
gallery being screened off by chicks (reed screens), from 
behind which a number of women watched the proceedings 
under great difficulties. A large company had assembled 
by the time I arrived. Comfortable chairs had been 
provided for the audience, and were occupied mostly by native 
gentlemen of the better educated classes. On an open 
space in front of the first row of chairs sat about fifty 
members of the Deva Dharma Society with their friends, 
all unostentatiously squatted on a white cloth which served 
as a carpet. Some arm-chairs were placed against the 
chicks facing the audience, and a small table provided with 
a lamp and ornamented with a vase occupied the middle 
part of the same end. The arm-chairs were soon occupied 
by seven unveiled native ladies, who commenced the pro- 
ceedings of the evening by singing a hymn in Urdu. When 
this was over the lady lecturer, Premdevi, neatly attired in 
skirt, bodice and chaddar, kid shoes and white stockings, 
with an orange-coloured kerchief pinned over her head, 
came forward, and taking her stand in a modest attitude at 
a little table, read her lecture with the greatest composure, 
in a clear musical voice of considerable compass. She 
commenced by laying special stress upon the great import- 
ance of a mother's influence upon the character of her 
offspring, illustrating her point by reference exclusively to 

212 



HINDU SOCIAL REFORMERS 

the biographies of Europeans, and especially of Englishmen. 
Having dwelt sufficiently on this subject, the lecturer 
proceeded to contrast Indian with English home-life, much 
to the disadvantage of the former. She told us that Indian 
homes were a hotbed of tyranny and contention, and she 
upbraided the highly educated classes — the University 
graduates, lawyers, and others — with keeping their women 
virtually in a state of slavery and imprisonment, while 
they themselves posed before the public as liberal-minded 
reformers of a quite radical type. Passing to other matters, 
the lady said a word for the Devi Dharma Mission, to which 
she had dedicated her life, and she warmly defended the 
domestic life of the founder of the new sect from certain 
criticisms which had been levelled against it. 

Within the hall the lady's address was listened to by 
her audience in complete and chilling silence. But out- 
side, loud angry shouting and vigorous knocking at the 
gates made it evident that there was at ' least a section of 
the Lahore public to whom Premdevi, or more probably 
the party she had joined, was anything but acceptable. 
Eegarding the lecturer's antecedents, a word may not be 
out of place. As far as I could ascertain, she had been 
a student in the local medical college, had completed a 
four years' course there, and had left the institution with 
honours. Amongst her friends she was known and spoken 
of as Doctor Premdevi. 

The lecture to which I have just referred was given 
on the 16th February 189L Some years previously I 
had had the pleasure of listening to another Hindu lady 
lecturing in the hall of the Arya Samaj on the woes of 
the inmates of the zenana, and I have given the substance 
of her complaint in another book.^ 

Some years earlier other Indian women had taken up 
the battle for their own emancipation. One prominent 
instance was that of Pandita Eamabai.^ 

This Brahman lady, a Mahratta by birth, was the 
daughter of a learned man, who, renouncing secular life, 

^ Indian Life, Religious and Social, pp. 117-119. 

^ Pandita Ramahai Sarasvati, the High-caste Hindu Woman (Fleming 
H. Revell Company, New York, 1901). 

213 



BRAHMANS, THEISTS, AND MUSLIMS OF INDIA 

retired into the jungle with his family, there to pass in 
devotion and study the remainder of his days. Under his 
instructions Eamabai acquired a knowledge of the Sanskrit 
language and of the sacred Vedas and Puranas of her 
religion. Strange to relate, she does not seem to have been 
married during her father's lifetime, and after his death 
she made a tour of India accompanied by her brother. 
Putting aside the prejudices of caste and disregarding the 
customs of her people, she made her own choice of a 
husband, not a Mahratta Brahman but a Bengali Babu, 
a graduate of the Calcutta University. A union like this 
between members of two widely distinct Indian national- 
ities was a most unorthodox and daring proceeding ; which, 
however, has been imitated many times since amongst the 
more highly educated classes. Only the other day the 
papers announced a marriage between a Bengali lady 
graduate of the Calcutta University and a Punjabi medical 
man educated in England. 

Within a few months of Eamabai's marriage she became 
a widow, but with her natural recalcitrance she declined to 
accept the degraded position or to undergo any of the 
humiliations of Hindu widowhood. Her utter contempt 
for the cherished conventions of Hindu religious and social 
life shocked and scandalised the orthodox, but with char- 
acteristic self-reliance she determined to devote herself to 
the ambitious task of raising the intellectual, social, and 
moral condition of her countrywomen. With this object 
Pandita Eamabai set about delivering public lectures on the 
education and emancipation of Hindu women. 

For a time this Brahman lady attracted a good deal 
of jpublic attention, and was the subject of many eulogistic 
addresses and notices, but her social position was a cruelly 
isolated one, and she readily fell under the spell of cer- 
tain kind Christian missionaries, who easily induced the 
clever and impulsive young wanderer from the fold of 
orthodox Hinduism to accept their sympathetic hospitality 
and help. Influenced by her new friends, the Pandita went 
to England, taking her little daughter with her. On her 
arrival in England, Eamabai received a cordial welcome 
from the Sisters of St. Mary at Wantage, and shortly after- 

214 



HINDU SOCIAL REFORMERS 

wards embraced the Christian religion, she and her little 
girl being baptized there in 1883. 

The convert learned English at Wantage, and was 
appointed Professor of Sanskrit at the Ladies' College, 
Cheltenham, where she studied mathematics, natural science, 
and English literature. However, before completing the 
usual course at that institution, she went to America to be 
present at Philadelphia on the occasion of her cousin, Mrs. 
Anandabai Joshee, receiving a medical degree. In America, 
Eamabai formed various schemes for the education and 
elevation of her sisters in India ; but her projects finally 
took shape in the determination to found a purely secular 
home for Hindu widows, where they might be trained in such 
work as would enable them to earn an independent living. 
By 1889 she got together by means of subscriptions a sum of 
£4000 for the establishment of a Home for Hindu Widows 
at Poona, and started it, in accordance with her original 
idea, as a purely secular institution ; but later on, yielding 
against her own judgment to the persuasion of Christian 
friends, she made the teaching of Christianity an essential 
feature of the place, and, as might have been anticipated, 
the venture, under these conditions, proved a complete 
failure. 

Pandita Eamabai's original idea was a good one, but 
even if strictly adhered to, would not, in all probability, 
have been attended with success, on account of her position 
as a convert to Christianity, It would have been very 
different had the Pandita remained a Hindu, even an 
unorthodox one. But her scheme, as it first took shape 
in her mind, has very much to recommend it, and in any and 
every part of India there is room, indeed a crying demand, 
for the establishment of Industrial Homes for destitute 
widows. Hindu philanthropists could hardly find worthier 
objects for their Hberality than such homes. And the 
State, on its part, might also afford legitimate and inex- 
pensive assistance to the peculiarly deplorable cause of 
Indian widows, by founding training schools in which 
widows, and widows only, would receive such instruction 
as would enable them to carry the torch of elementary 
knowledge into the twilight of the zenanas. Such training 

215 



BRAHMANS, THEISTS, AND MUSLIMS OF INDIA 

schools as I have in my mmd would be strictly secular, 
conducted by women only, and would neither attempt nor 
suggest any interference with the manners and customs of 
Hindu society. Widows trained in these schools, having 
in no essentials departed from their religion or the social 
habits of their own people, would be freely received in 
the zenanas without that prejudice which necessarily and 
invariably attaches to the Christian zenana teacher. 

Their superior education, counteracting in a great 
measure the sense of their unworthiness as widows, would 
give them considerable influence for good, and in time 
spread a certain degree of education through the households 
of all the better classes of the Hindu world. Gradually 
widows would cease to be regarded as objects of contempt, 
the old-world prejudice against them would, in time, die 
out, and a large number of them, by securing honourable 
and remunerative employment, would cease to be unwilling 
and unwelcome burdens on the family and the community 
to which they belong by right of birth or of matrimonial 
alliance. 

A yearly increasing number of educated widows working 
regularly as teachers behind the piirdah would, as already 
stated, gradually dispel much of the ignorance which at 
the present time is entrenched in the almost inaccessible 
zenanas of the land. And when ignorance is diminished, 
the spontaneous adoption of reforms and improvements in 
social life may be confidently looked for. 

Possibly my suggestion in regard to secular training 
schools for Hindu ividows destined for zenana work has been 
anticipated, but as I am not aware of such being the case, 
I commend it to the Indian Educational authorities, in the 
belief that it contains the potential germ of a gradual, 
wholly unobjectionable, and far-reaching internal revolu- 
tion in Hindu social life, entirely free from the irritation 
inevitably associated with interference from the outside. 

The attitude of men towards female education. — In spite 
of much affected earnestness on their part, I do not fancy 
that even educated Indians generally, whether Hindus 
or Muhammadans, take a specially keen interest in the 
intellectual improvement of the inmates of the zenana, and 

216 



^ HINDU SOCIAL REFORMERS 

I am sure they do not relish being lectured by Hindu 
women on their own shortcomings. With the Parsees who 
are not Hindus at all, but followers of Zarathushtra, and in 
the case of certain Brahmas of Bengal who have practically 
cut themselves off from Hinduism, the question of the 
education of women and of their intercourse in society with 
the opposite sex, is, of course, on a different footing. 

That some educated young men devote attention to the 
instruction of their girl- wives in reading and writing, and 
often encourage their pupils by means of rewards in the 
shape of jewellery for proficiency in the tasks set them, I 
am well aware. But a large majority of the men, while 
recognising, in an academic fashion, the great importance of 
female education, are by no means anxious for any special 
advance in this direction, at least during their own lifetime ; 
for the subjection of women has always been a cardinal 
doctrine in the East, apparent even in its folk-lore. For 
example, Professor Max Miiller in his interesting essay 
" On the Migration of Fables " establishes the Indian origin 
of the idea or motif of the charming fable of the silly little 
castle-building milk-maid, so familiar in different forms to 
European children. He gives two or three versions of the 
fable as known in Western nurseries, and as related by 
Eastern fabulists; but the learned philologist does not 
notice what has a special interest of its own, that the 
Eastern fable has always a man for its hero, whose imagina- 
tion seems to picture as the highest possible pitch of pride 
to kick and beat his wife. In the West the subject of the 
story is a woman, whose misfortune results from feminine 
vanity or childish delight, finding expression in a toss of the 
head or a frolicsome caper. The contrast is instructive ! 

Immodest lathing. — There are, however, other directions 
than education in which many men find congenial scope for 
their energies in the advertising of themselves and the 
reforming of the sex ; one of these is immodest bathing. 

One April morning I drove down to the river Eavi on 
the occasion of a Hindu fair. I was on the road by a quarter 
after seven, but already a host of people in ekkas and 
ordinary four-wheeled carriages, on horseback and on foot, 
were returning from the river ; while another somewhat 

217 



BRAHMANS, THEISTS, AND MUSLIMS OF INDIA 

smaller stream of behind-time persons of both sexes was 
hurrying towards the river. It was an animated and 
picturesque crowd, displaying a good deal of bright colour 
and no little amount of good looks. 

From near a spot where some Yogis had encamped, the 
moving crowd left the main road, and crossing a track over 
the fields made for the bathing-place. I passed on to the 
bridge of boats, and had a good view up and down stream. 
The water was low, and the bathers were able to go right 
out into the shallow stream, which in some places was little 
more than knee-deep. The most frequented part was about 
five or six hundred yards below the bridge, so I turned off 
and took a pathway along the riverside, protected from the 
sun by a forest of trees. 

The bathers were, for the most part, congregated upon a 
low sandbank, separated from the riverside by a shallow 
channel, and here I noticed a long screen made of daris 
(cotton carpets) in the usual Indian fashion, set up, as I 
soon learned, for the special object of concealing the women 
bathers from the prying eyes of their countrymen. 

This was an innovation probably acceptable to neither 
sex, the outcome, in fact, of the recent teaching of Hindu 
social reformers of the modern school. 

It has for ages been the practice as it is to-day for 
Hindu women in the Punjab to bathe in the same streams 
and tanks as the men use, to frequent the bathing-places 
at the same hours as the men do, and to bathe stark 
naked, for when they are seen thus their sins are forgiven. 
But the old custom has become shocking to the modern 
reformers, and they have been raising an outcry about it 
which had borne fruit in the very prominent screen which 
had attracted my attention. However, the men who chose 
to bathe in advance of the screen were not cut off from 
witnessing the aquatic performances of the fair ladies, and 
if I may judge from what I saw, there was quite a large 
number of men not indisposed to avail themselves of this 
vantage-ground. These were evidently the unregenerate. 
But a party of "reformers," nothing loath to do likewise, 
stole round to a favourable point of view and set up a 
camera for the purpose of having a " study from the nude," 

218 



HINDU SOCIAL REFORMERS 

with the laudable object of exposing the scandal and 
refuting the denials of the orthodox by a sun-picture that 
could not lie. However, the orthodox party raised an 
outcry against these well-meant proceedings, and the police, 
never too discriminating, hustled the zealous reformers 
with their camera away out of eye-shot of the naked 
damsels. 

Of nude women I myself saw none on this occasion. 
Only one stood outside the screen with nothing but a skirt 
on to arrange her toilet, and some few waded through the 
ankle-deep water, keeping their skirts nearly up to their 
hips. But, alas ! only a fraction of their sins could be thus 
expiated. 

On the bank of the river, a hundred yards or so behind 
the sandbank where the screen had been put up, there was 
a Shdmiyana (pavilion) closed on three sides, but open 
towards the river face, carpeted with daris and a clean 
white cloth, which invited the passer-by to sit down and 
listen to the words of wisdom from the lips of a learned 
Brahman, a man acquainted with the Yedas. This pavilion 
had been pitched by the Sanathan Dharma Sabha, i.e., the 
Orthodox Hindu Society. The learned Brahman sat, to my 
mild surprise, at a table in an arm-chair. Neither table nor 
arm-chair were worth a second thought except in connection 
with that orthodox Brahman, who exhibited quite an 
advanced tendency by using such articles of furniture, 
surely never heard of in Vedic times. 

The Pandit at the table, a grey-bearded man wearing 
a pttgri (turban), was reading Sanskrit texts and expound- 
ing them to those who cared to listen, the burden of his 
teaching being that the Vedas did inculcate the necessity 
of bathing in the Ganges, the Jumna, the Saras wati and 
the other rivers, and declared the religious merit of such 
bathing. These harangues were meant to counteract the 
unorthodox teachings of certain recent reforming sects, to 
the effect that such bathing ceremonies were useless if not 
worse. 

While witnessing the above noted efforts at screening 
the Hindu women from the gaze of the public, I recalled 
to mind that a couple of years previously a great outcry 

219 



BRAHMANS, THEISTS, AND MUSLIMS OF INDIA 

had been made by certain persons against a police officer 
in the Punjab, because in his district a woman had been, 
so it was stated, disrobed for the purposes of a police 
inquiry. A great deal of political capital it was hoped 
would be made out of this "outrage," but though that 
expectation was not realised, the outcry led to the police 
officer's partisans directing special attention to the bathing 
habits of the people, and to their practical indifference to 
the disrobing of their women in public places; and it 
struck me that probably this counter-move may have to 
some extent hastened the reforming movement and led 
to the practical result embodied in the hanat on the Eavi 
sandbank. 

The sentiment against nude bathing had certainly been 
growing for some years past. In the English supplement, 
dated 21st February 1881, of the paper published by the 
Society known as the Anjuman-i-Punjab, a correspondent 
writing from Multan stated that a private association was 
being formed amongst the native gentlemen of the place 
for the prevention of the custom which obtains in the 
Punjab of women bathing naked in the public baths. He 
stated that at a Suraj-Kanth festival, held at a distance of 
four miles from Multan, thousands of women bathed naked 
in the sacred reservoir in sight of the men, many of whom, 
hadmashes (profligates) he calls them, went amongst the 
women, while others, less bold, stood farther off stealing 
sly glances at the charms of the fair bathers. 

How curious and contradictory are the habits of female 
seclusion and women bathing naked, and how strange that 
nowhere, so far as I am aware, do men bathe in an 
absolutely nude state in any part of India. 

The inimitable "Ali Baba" speaks of "the privileges 
of nakedness conferred by a brown skin," and there really 
is something in this. I remember well an educated native 
gentleman being quite shocked at the flesh-coloured tights 
of an English ballet-girl, whose coloured photograph he 
saw in my album; quite forgetful that the women of his 
own race went about in a costume which left exposed to 
view, bare and naked, far more of the person than was 
covered by the silk tights of the ballet-dancer, 

220 



HINDU SOCIAL REFORMERS 

Although, as far as I know, it is not the usual practice 
in India, outside the Punjab, for women to bathe naked, 
yet mixed bathing is common and may be witnessed every- 
where along the banks of the great rivers, and that it has 
attractions, other than religious ones, for the ordinary 
Hindu, will be evident from the following quaintly expressed 
views of a Bengali gentleman : — 

"The ghauts at Benares are by far the most 
striking of all its architecture; — and the ghauts of a 
Hindoo city are always its best lounges. Upon them 
are passed the happiest hours of a Hindoo's day. 
There, in the mornings, the greater part of the popula- 
tion turns out to bathe, to dress, and to pray. In 
the evenings, the people retire thither from the toils 
of the day, to sit on the open steps and gulp the fresh 
river-air. The devout congregate to see a Sunyasi 
practise austerities, or hear a Ptcruvihunso pass judg- 
ment upon Vedantism. The idler lounges there, and 
has a hawk's eye after a pretty wench. There do the 
Hindoo females see the world out of their zenanas, 
cultivate friendship, acquire taste, pick up fashion, 
talk scandal, discuss the politics of petticoat govern- 
ment, learn the prices current of eatables, and propose 
matches for their sons and daughters. Half their 
flirting and half their romancing go on at the ghauts. 
There have the young widows opportunity to exchange 
glances, to know that there are admirers of their 
obsolete beauties, and to enjoy the highest good 
humour they can harmlessly indulge in. 

" Being the headquarters of religion, the centre of 
wealth, the focus of fashion, and the seat of polite 
society, Benares is the great point of convergence to 
which is attracted the beauty of all Hindoostan. 
To have a peep at that beauty, the best opportunity 
is when the women sport themselves like merry Naiads 
in the waters of the Ganges. Then do you see realised 
the mythic story of the apple of discord between 
goddesses personified by the Khottanee, the Mahrat- 
tanee, and the Lucknowallee — each contending to 
carry off the prize. The Hindoostanee women have 
a prestige from the days of Sacoontola and Seeta. 
But it is to be questioned whether a youthful 
Bengalinee cannot fairly stand the rivalry of these 
charms. The dress and costume of the Khottanee 

221 



BRAHMANS, THEISTS, AND MUSLIMS OF INDIA 

certainly kick the beam in their favour. But we 
would fain raise the point on behalf of the women 
of Bengal, whether ' beauty unadorned is not adorned 
the most' — whether in the nudity of their muslin- 
saree they are not as naked as ' the statue that 
enchants the world.' " ^ 

Curiously enough mixed bathing is every year becoming 
more and more popular in Europe, notwithstanding that 
certain persons are scandalised, and the susceptibilities of 
some good folks outraged thereby. What is it a sign of ? 

Immoral songs at weddings. — When the social patho- 
logist casts his critical eye about, he usually lights before 
long upon some evil or other which he longs to remove. 
This is true everywhere, but especially so in Hindu India. 

As is well known, it has been a custom amongst the 
Hindus for grossly immoral songs to be sung, even 
by respectable women of good social position, on the 
occasion of weddings, when also a licence of speech is 
permitted which is nothing short of astonishing. Now 
young India, realising that these practices are such as 
Europeans can reasonably take exception to, raises what 
protest he can against them, and the new social purity 
associations also seriously denounce such " degrading 
practices." If, say some reformers, we have none but 
obscene songs to sing at a marriage feast, let us sing 
hymns (hhajans) on such occasions; not Vedic hymns, 
but the hymns which have been recently composed for 
the purposes of the new religious Samajes. 

To have the joyous, sensuous licence of the marriage 
festivities thus curtailed, revolutionised, destroyed, must 
be intolerable to women to whom these social gatherings 
are a welcome relief from the monotony of seclusion, and 
a much appreciated opportunity for a little, perhaps too 
excessive, freedom of speech in the hearing at least of the 
opposite sex. 

However, in some cases that I have heard of, hhajans 
have been substituted by reforming zealots for the usual 
marriage songs, not always with happy results. An Indian 
friend of mine once related to me the ludicrous results 

^ Bholanath Chuuder, Travels of a Hindoo, vol. i. pp. 252, 253. 
222 



HINDU SOCIAL REFORMERS 

of this decision, at any rate on one occasion. He was at 
the wedding of some respectable people who had been 
inoculated with the social reform fever, and consequently 
patronised hymns ; so hymns were being sung, to the great 
discontent and almost open revolt of the ladies. My 
friend gave attention to the words of one of the hymns, 
which did not seem particularly lively, and lo ! to his 
astonishment, he discovered it was a funeral dirge which 
the not too discriminating singers were providing as an 
epithalamium. 

Women's dress. — Wherever under the sun civilised men 
and women are to be found, women's dress is one of those 
subjects on which the mere man holds strong convictions when 
the tendency of fashion is towards unnecessary exposure of 
the person. On this important subject I may be permitted 
to quote the following quaint passage from a book written 
by an educated Bengali : — 

" It would not be out of place to notice here that 
it would be a very desirable improvement in the way 
of decency to introduce among the Hindoo females of 
Bengal a stouter fabric for their garment in place of 
the present thin, flimsy, loose sari, without any other 
covering over it. In this respect, their sisters of the 
North-Western and Central Provinces, as well as those 
of the South, are decidedly more decent and respectable. 
A few respectable Hindoo ladies have of late years 
begun to put an unghia or corset over their bodies, 
but still the under vestment is shamefully indelicate. 
Why do not the Baboos of Bengal strive to introduce a 
salutary change in the dress of their mothers, wives, 
sisters, and daughters, which private decency and 
public morality most urgently demand ? These social 
reforms must go hand in hand with religious, moral, 
and intellectual improvement. The one is as essential 
to the elevation and dignity of female character as the 
other is to the advancement of the nation in the scale 
of civilisation." ^ 

The neiv vjoman. — Strange as it may seem, we already 
hear in India complaints of the new woman, and from 
many quarters too. I have frequently heard men say that 

^ Shib Chunder Bose, The Hindoos as they are, p. 194, 
223 



BRAHMANS, THEISTS, AND MUSLIMS OF INDIA 

their women who had learned to read and write made use 
of these arts only to indite love-letters or make assignations. 
Possibly there may be some truth in this statement, also 
in the very curious accusation against educated Indian 
husbands contained in the following passage from a book 
written by a great zamindar (landowner) of Bengal : — 

" Many of the wives of the educated people in the 
towns and suburbs know how to read and write a 
little. But how does this little knowledge serve them ? 
It is not utilised to help them to higher education, 
but is used to pander to the vicious tastes of their 
husbands, who derive an unearthly pleasure from an 
unholy epistolary correspondence with their wives, the 
diction and sentiments of which will put many an 
abandoned woman to the blush. 

" If young men educate their wives so as to be able 
only to write filthy letters or to read erotic novels that 
should never be allowed to cross the threshold of any 
man of good taste, and train them so to disregard 
their parents and superiors and to utterly neglect 
their household duties, then I say the sooner we get 
rid of such education and training the better it will be 
for our country." ^ 

In the face of such statements it may reasonably be 
doubted whether the importation of education, and a strong 
infusion of Western ideas regarding liberty, into Indian 
home-life will be quite as beneficial as some well-meaning 
persons think. In this connection the following indictment 
of the new woman in India, contributed to an Anglo-Indian 
newspaper by one of her own countrymen, will not be out 
of place or uninteresting : — 

" In some instances the little learning of our girls 
is producing very unwholesome results. Girls that can 
read or write are still in a great minority as compared 
with their unlettered sisters ; hence their attainments, 
however insignificant these may be, are not a little apt 
to be overrated. This in some cases turns the heads 
of the poor girls, and they consider themselves as 
belonging to a higher and nobler order of existence. 

^ B. 0. Mahtab (Maharajah of Burdwan), Sttodies, pp^ 44, 45. 
224 



HINDU SOCIAL REFORMERS 

They are thus puffed up with pride and are unfitted to 
take their share in household duties. They think it 
beneath them to cook, to cleanse dishes and cups, to 
scrub the floor, or to fetch water from rivers or tanks. 
If married to poor people they look upon themselves 
as thrown away, and have been known on slight 
provocation to put an end to their existence by 
swallowing opium or by hanging or drowning them- 
selves. Sometimes when they are allowed to take the 
upper hand in the management of the household 
affairs they grow lazy, domineering, extravagant, and 
selfish. The toilet is their great scene of business, and 
the proper adjusting of the hair the chief occupation 
of their lives. This I say is the state of ordinary 
women, though I know there are multitudes of these 
of a more elevated life and conversation that move in 
an exalted sphere of culture and virtue and are imbued 
with religious fervour and piety that fill their male 
beholders with awe and fear ! " 



The above is certainly not an encouraging picture, and 
we have moreover native Indian newspapers already 
bewailing the demoralisation of the so-called educated ladies 
of Bengal, who frequent theatres and indulge in cigarette- 
smoking and wine-drinking. 

The future. — Although very little indeed has yet been 
achieved in respect to female education in India, it is 
certain that under British rule means for the intellectual 
advancement of the women will not be lost sight of, and 
that progress will be made. Gradually, in the course of 
time, education will get a firm footing behind the purdah, 
and, as an unavoidable consequence, the zenana system will 
be weakened. Greater liberty of movement and action, 
more personal independence, will be conceded to Indian 
women, or be assumed by them as in the many cases already 
familiar to us in the very infancy of the movement, and, 
under the new conditions, Hindu society will be entirely 
transformed. The instructive spectacle presented to us 
to-day in the breaking down, with deplorable consequences, 
of the old family system in Japan as the result of the 
extension of female education in that country, ought to be a 
warning to the more sanguine advocates for the admission 
p 225 



BRAHMANS, THEISTS, AND MUSLIMS OF INDIA 

of women in India to the educational privileges of the other 
sex.^ 

With an irresistible desire to peer, as far as may be 
possible, into the future, we naturally pause to ask ourselves, 
What the effect of such a radical change in Hindu society 
would be ? 

Education is, in these days, a magic word, a word to 
conjure with ; but stripped of fictitious glamour, what does 
it mean for the great mass of females of all classes even in 
advanced Western countries ? For the vast majority of 
Indian women, well trained as they are in the arts and 
requirements of Indian domestic life, it would, if not 
actually prejudicial to this domestic training, simply mean a 
superadded knowledge of reading, writing, and ciphering, to 
be used most likely, as we have already learned, in poring 
over unedifying fiction, writing passionate love-letters, com- 
municating gossip to friends at a distance, and perhaps 
in casting up accounts occasionally. 

After much careful consideration of the subject, I yet 
cannot help feeling that in India female education, which 
to a very great extent involves female emancipation from 
control, will not be an altogether unmixed blessing, and 
that the great benefits expected from it will never be 
realised. Of one thing we need have no doubt that Indian 
women, of whatever class, when they have been educated 
will assert themselves and claim a social freedom denied 
to their sex at any and every period of Indian history of 
which we have any knowledge. If the time ever comes 
when this great emancipation of Indian women is an ac- 
complished fact, then, by their inevitable rivalry a much 
higher and more expensive standard of living will become 
general and a much more strenuous life will be imposed 
upon bread-winners than any of which the Indian people 
have as yet had experience. As a result of extravagant 
living, coupled with an increased desire for freedom on the 
part of both men and women, marriages will become less 
frequent and less permanent. Existing caste barriers will 
inevitably be carried away, because superior "up-to-date" 

^ See "Education in the New Japan," by Mrs. Mary Crawford Fraser, in 
The World's Work, November 1906. 

226 



HINDU SOCIAL REFORMERS 

men and women would naturally rise above such old-world 
prejudices, while quite as inevitably a new order of castes, 
based most probably on wealth, would come into existence. 

The strenuous life, with its concomitant discouragement 
of marriage, once inaugurated, competition hetiveen the sexes 
for employment will become as unavoidable, as keen, and as 
deplorable as it is in Europe and America, and in this strife 
of interests and individuals the unsuccessful of both sexes 
will as elsewhere go down to the abyss and be submerged. 

Amongst the voluptuous races of India a freedom of inter- 
course between the sexes, such as is permitted in European 
social life, would, under existing conditions, be morally 
disastrous, but whether, with the spread of education 
amongst all classes and both sexes, such social intercourse 
would be productive of good or evil is a question which 
must be left to the decision of time. 



227 



HINDU SOCIAL BMYOUME^S— continued 

Sectiok VIII. — Social intercourse between Europeans and Natives. 



HE desirability of promoting social intercourse 
in India between Europeans and natives, or 
between the rulers and the ruled in that great 
dependency, is a subject often on the lips of 
English men and women, who have not given so 
much as a thought to the thousands of years of 
history, legends, and dreams, of religious systems and social 
institutions which lie between the two nationalities, and will 
lie between them for ever. With the sunshine and warmth 
of millenniums in their veins can the Indian races ever 
really relinquish their traditions, their hereditary feelings, 
ideas, and customs in order to consort with their frigid 
masters from the fog-bound islands of the West ? Can they 
do all this ? for no soul ever imagines, even for a moment, 
that the dominant race will ever willingly consent to abate 
one jot or tittle of its intellectual pretensions or alter its 
insular manners and customs in the minutest degree to 
further social intercourse between themselves and the 
natives. Therefore all the concessions, all the modifica- 
tions, and all the sacrifices must come from the Indians, 
if they are to come at all. 

On the other hand, if with the hope of gaining political 
or personal advantages the upper ranks of the subject races 
were induced, in the course of time, to abandon their religious 
exclusiveness and to recast their social systems so as to fit 
in with those of their European masters in order to bring 
about free social intercourse between the men and women 
of the two races, does any well-informed person really 
believe that such changes would be welcomed by the rulers 
or by English society in India ? 

228 



HINDU SOCIAL REFORMERS 

However, the introduction of such changes as I have 
just contemplated is contingent upon so many very im- 
probable circumstances, in the case of Hindus and 
Muslims alike, that the question does not at the present 
time call for serious consideration. But it may, never- 
theless, be profitable to survey the extent of the inter- 
course between the two races which exists at the present 
time as the result of ordinary administrative and busi- 
ness requirements, and the deliberate action of social 
reformers. 

In the upper strata of Indian society, European and 
native, some half-hearted attempts to bring about social 
intercourse are not wanting ; but in the lower ranks of life 
there is nothing of the sort, no drawing together either real 
or feigned. Ambitious and pushing natives naturally desire 
to keep themselves as much as possible before the eyes of the 
higher English officials — dispensers of Government favours, 
rewards, and honours — and these well-paid officials on 
their part, posing as liberal-minded administrators devoted 
disinterestedly, heart and soul, to the Vi;^elfare of the country, 
are constrained to encourage any movement that may 
reasonably be thought conducive to the welfare and im- 
provement of what, with fine humility, they style their 
native fellow-subjects. Under the promptings of such 
motives as I have just mentioned, associations have been 
formed for the especial object of promoting social inter- 
course between Europeans and natives ; but their influence 
has been infinitesimal. Associations of this sort generally 
arrange for one or two formal reunions of Europeans and 
natives each year; conversaziones perhaps, or more likely 
garden-parties. A few prominent European officials attend 
these functions, and lay themselves out to repay with 
pleasant but condescending civility the attentions of the 
native gentlemen present. No Hindu or Muslim ladies 
grace such assemblies with their presence, and though it 
may be taken as all but certain that every native gentleman 
present has a wife at home, it would be a gross breach of 
Hindu or Muslim etiquette to ask about even the health of 
the ladies behind the purdah or make any allusion whatever 
to them. 

229 



BRAHMANS, THEISTS, AND MUSLIMS OF INDIA 

Only a very few native Christian ladies may be seen 
at these mixed assemblies in Northern India. But a fair 
attendance of English ladies may be counted upon, all of 
them, with extremely rare exceptions, quite unacquainted 
with the native gentlemen amongst whom they move 
about with unconcealed indifference during a brief hour 
or two. 

Amidst the evident boredom of all parties concerned, 
the suggestion of refreshments comes as a relief to Europeans 
and natives alike, and now the striking hollowness of the 
attempt to bring about social intercourse between Europeans 
and natives is still further accentuated ; for at this juncture, 
a marked, if gradual, separation of the three communities, 
European, Hindu, and Muhammadan, becomes apparent as 
they respectively gravitate towards three widely separated 
refreshment buffets provided with viands of very distinctive 
kinds. One of the essential barriers between the three 
communities thus stands revealed in an inability to eat or 
drink together. I well remember at one such garden-party 
trying to persuade a native gentleman to join me at the 
buffet where Europeans were partaking of refreshments; 
but he politely excused himself and hurried off smiling but 
none the less dismayed, though he had been in England, 
had been called to the Bar there, and had of necessity 
lived with Europeans for about three years. At home in 
India he was another man, and eating and drinking with 
non-Hindus in the sight of his own countrymen could not 
possibly be indulged in without the gravest consequences. 

A few native gentlemen of high position, Eajahs and 
Maharajahs for example, make it a practice to extend 
magnificent hospitality to European gentlemen and ladies 
for perhaps a week at a time once or twice a year. 
Nothing that money can provide or courtesy dictate is 
wanting on such occasions for the entertainment and 
comfort of the guests. The host and the male members 
of the family take a lively personal interest in the arrange- 
ment and management of everything, organising shooting- 
parties, races, and sports of all kinds. The Maharajah 
himself and some of his relatives and high officers may 
even dance with the English ladies ; but no native ladies 

230 



HINDU SOCIAL REFORMERS 

are present, and these neglected ones may, at most, obtain 
from behind the jalousies of the zenana an envious glimpse 
of the doings of their gay lords. 

Sometimes we hear of an Indian Muslim feudatory and 
two or three of his sirdars sitting down to dinner on a State, 
or very special, occasion with high Anglo-Indian officials and 
European ladies, but needless to add that not a single 
Muhammadan lady is present at these social gatherings. 

Wealthy Babus who have official or business relations 
with Europeans do now and again invite them to their 
houses to witness a nautch or perhaps the tricks of Indian 
jugglers, and on such occasions provide their guests with a 
sumptuous repast and champagne ad libitum; but native 
ladies are conspicuous by their absence at these entertain- 
ments, which are generally a mere incident in the prolonged 
festivities connected with a wedding in the host's family. 

In official, professional, and commercial life, that is in 
business generally, a certain degree of perhaps daily inter- 
course takes place between the men of the different races. 
In the Council Chamber, on the Bench, at the Bar, in all 
the administrative departments of the State, in the 
Universities and Colleges, in Government, railway and 
commercial offices, in banks, markets and business places 
of every kind, Europeans and natives meet regularly as 
fellow-workers. Under such circumstances they come to 
know a great deal of each other as workers in the sphere to 
which they belong, and on the whole there can be no doubt 
that such contact tends to mutual respect and kindly 
sympathy and even personal regard and affection, and yet 
does not encourage social intercourse. 

Sports in which both Europeans and natives meet in 
friendly rivalry also afford opportunities, not very numerous 
it is true, for the men of the two races to understand and 
appreciate each other ; for tiger-hunting ; and such games 
as polo, football, and cricket have a tendency to draw out 
certain good points of men's characters, whether the players 
be white or brown. 

Freemasonry has admitted to a knowledge of its secrets 
a handful of Indian deists, and these gentlemen partake, 
along with their white "brethren of the mystic tie," of 

2^1 



BRAHMANS, THEISTS, AND MUSLIMS OF INDIA 

those refreshing banquets that usually reward the exhaust- 
ing labours of the craftsmen. Perhaps in this fraternal 
association some real friendships may possibly be formed 
and cemented; but then the ladies on both sides are by 
the masonic code rigorously excluded from all strictly 
masonic gatherings. 

Intercourse between Europeans and natives in the ordi- 
nary business of life and in sports of all kinds will probably 
increase as time goes on, with the inevitable result of a 
certain levelling up from below and loivering from above, 
fraught with momentous political consequences. 

Here and there an Indian prince may be found whose 
wife accompanies him into European society, but on inquiry 
the prince would probably prove to be a man of inferior 
caste, probably not a professing Hindu at all, or a very 
unorthodox one. 

Amongst the minor non-Hindu and non-Muslim com- 
munities of India there are some, the well-known Parsees 
of Bombay for example, whose customs permit of freer 
intercourse between their women and Europeans in society 
than is admissible in the case of Hindus and Muhammadans ; 
but though very prominent in Western India, these clever 
and amiable followers of Zarathushtra form but a very 
inconsiderable fraction of the vast population of India. 

Mixed marriages, by which I here mean marriages 
between Indian men and European women, almost un- 
known formerly, have not been quite so rare in recent 
years, and being indicative of an appreciable levelling up, 
may possibly help to create a certain amount of social 
intercourse between the sexes and also between Europeans 
and natives, though I am doubtful that the latter result 
would follow unless the husband happened to be a Christian, 
cut off from his own kith and kin. 

Mr. Oscar Browning certainly tells us how he dined at 
the house of an English lady, brought up at Girton, and 
married to a distinguished Hindu, and there met six Indian 
ladies attired in graceful native dress ; but he omits to 
record whether these six ladies were Cin-istians, Brahmas, 
Parsees, or Hindus, and whether they really ate at the same 
table with himself and his English hostess. He admits, 

2^2 



HINDU SOCIAL REFORMERS 

however, that at the after-dinner reception, " the male 
and female elements did not seem to mix. The ladies 
sat huddled up on a sofa together, while their lords and 
masters wandered about entirely careless of their exist- 
ence," adding the significant remark, " Still they seemed 
happy enough." ^ 

I have known English married ladies to visit, now and 
again, the wives and families of native gentlemen with whom 
their own husbands were associated in business, and to have 
been very interested in all they saw and heard in the 
zenana. They have been catechised by their hostess and 
her companions as to the value of their jewellery and the 
amount of their husband's earnings. They have had to 
submit to the close and curious inspection of all the details 
of their dress and attire generally; and have called forth 
expressions of astonishment and horror on being led to 
admit that they had unmarried daughters at home of 
eighteen or even twenty years of age. The visitors have 
had to admire the scantily clothed baby-boy carrying 
on his tiny person a valuable assortment of pure gold 
ornaments ; they have had to partake of confections to 
which they had not been used, and which at the conclusion 
of the visit were all packed up and sent with the visitors, 
a kindly meant but still doubtful compliment, when it is 
remembered those sweets had become impure and unfit for 
home consumption, owing to the presence and contaminating 
touch of the visitors themselves. 

If we indulge our fancies we may imagine that while 
the English ladies driving to the residence of their hostess 
had perhaps been discussing certain details of a recent station 
ball or a new book by a popular novelist, their Hindu friends 
may have been arranging about a proposed pilgrimage to 
Hardwar or bewailing the misfortunes of an accursed 
child-widow of ten or twelve years of age. If the hostess 
belonged to a Muslim family she might have been talking 
about the approaching fast of Eamazan, or the expected 
return of a Haji from Mecca. 

But after the visit was over we may be sure, conjecture 
being quite unnecessary, that both the European and 

' Impressions of Indian Travel, [ip, 57, 58. 



BRAHMANS, THEISTS, AND MUSLIMS OF INDIA 

native ladies were busy commenting, with more pungent 
criticism than kindly appreciation, upon each other's strange 
ideas, quaint manners, and odd peculiarities of dress and 
behaviour. 

Lady doctors and zenana teachers, on different grounds, 
and for their own purposes, obtain admission into the 
houses of the natives, and no doubt help the secluded 
inmates of Indian homes to realise to some extent the 
position, the freedom, and the aspirations of European 
women. 

European ladies of the very highest position have held 
receptions for native ladies from which all men have been 
scrupulously excluded, and the outside world has been 
duly assured that these functions were very successful 
indeed. 

No doubt the company must have very greatly interested 
the English hostess and her English countrywomen, and 
the meeting given both hostess and guests much to talk about 
afterwards; but whether these receptions really tend to 
promote social intercourse between Europeans and natives 
may well be doubted. A few Indian ladies have come with 
their husbands to Europe, and some have been presented at 
Court ; but they have none the less been unable to obtain 
or maintain a footing in Anglo-Indian society. 

Affectation and hypocrisy aside, English men and 
women in India have no desire to mix on intimate terms, 
or on a footing of social equality, with natives of even the 
best class ; while natives on their part have not the least 
inclination or the remotest intention of admitting Westerns 
to the intimacy of their own home-life. As already ex- 
plained, there are doubtless some natives who desire the 
acquaintance or formal friendship of well-placed Europeans, 
but merely because they hope that such friendship, 
maintained strictly outside their family circle, may be an 
honour or a worldly advantage to themselves. There are 
also a few Englishmen of the commoner sort who for 
pecuniary gain are not ashamed to be hangers-on to the 
native princes and aristocrats. But the modes of life, 
habits of thought, religious beliefs and prejudices, ethical 
standards, manners, and etiquette of the two races have so 

234 



HINDU SOCIAL REFORMERS 

little in common that a strong desire for each other's com- 
panionship, which, after all, is the true basis of friend- 
ship, would be extraordinary indeed, and would be more 
extraordinary still in the existing relative positions of the 
two races as dominant and subject members respectively 
of the body politic; a fact which finds expression in the 
natural if offensive racial pride of the ruling class, and has 
its complement in the deep-rooted objection of many upper 
class natives to accept even the semblance of patronage 
from members of the present dominant caste. 

Eacial antipathies, accentuated by political inequalities 
and religious exclusiveness, are amongst the fundamental 
difficulties in the way of social intercourse between 
Europeans and natives in India, and will probably prove 
insurmountable. 

Some of the ways in which the assumption of race- 
superiority on the part of official or unofficial Europeans is 
made objectionably manifest in the disdainful treatment of 
natives, are set forth in a recent pamphlet written by a 
Parsee barrister-at-law.^ The writer alludes to incidents 
which are common in railway travelling, on railway plat- 
forms, in the law courts and elsewhere, and his statements 
are both true and temperate ; but I fear there is no remedy 
for the evil such as it is. 

Other more obvious causes which hinder social inter- 
course between Europeans and natives are so well known 
that it may be sufficient to merely mention them here. One 
of these is that native ladies may not appear in society 
along with men. Under such circumstances Europeans 
naturally object to their own wives and daughters having 
social intercourse, however formal, with native gentlemen, 
and as the presence of women is an indispensable feature of 
European society, all natives are in consequence excluded 
from it, except in such rare cases as those already referred to. 

Then there is the previously stated difficulty about 
eating and drinking together. 

Again, the requirements of administrative efficiency 
compel every European official occupying a responsible 

^ K. E. Ghamat, Barrister-at-law, The Present State of India : An Appeal 
to Anrjlo - Indians {Bom.ha,j, 1905), pp. 10-27. 



BRAHMANS, THEISTS, AND MUSLIMS OF INDIA 

position — whatever his goodwill towards the natives may 
be — to hold himself aloof from friendly intercourse with 
them, because, beside the risk of compromising his dignity, 
he is well aware that in most cases his friendship is sought 
by natives, even of high rank, from interested motives not 
always unobjectionable. And, in any case, the evidence of 
friendship between any European official and a native would 
surely give rise to jealousies and suspicions amongst the 
less favoured Indian gentry. 

Superior European officials being thus wisely shy of 
forming any but the most nominal friendships with natives, 
their juniors, as well as Europeans of other classes, take the 
cue from them. Subordinate European officials and non- 
officials have no need whatever to be particularly stand- 
offish ; but, on the other hand, their friendship is not 
courted by native gentlemen, for the simple reason that it 
would not pay. 

I hope I have now made it quite clear that there is no 
natural drawing together of Europeans and natives in any 
stratum of society from the highest to the lowest, but 
rather the reverse, and that, though much friendly feeling 
may exist between individual members of the different 
communities, the only encouragement which exists to social 
intercourse between them is purely artificial, being due 
mainly to an affectation of liberality and large-minded- 
ness on the part of a few officials, desirous of posing as 
men above the narrow prejudices of race, colour, and creed ; 
interested motives in the case of natives anxious to secure 
useful friends and patrons amongst the white ruling class ; 
and desire on the part of certain Indians who have enjoyed 
and appreciated the hospitality and friendship of people in 
England to retain the same privileges in India. 

When one hears Sir Civilian Administrator, K.O.I.E., or 
General Sir Indian Army, K.C.S.I., speaking of his dear 
friends the Eajah of Eacepore or Sirdar Polo Singh, we need 
not take their expressions literally but discount them freely, as 
being evidently tainted with that official insincerity (become 
second nature) which is engendered by and inseparable 
from the high position he holds or has held in his day. 
Also when the Eajah or the Sirdar alludes to his old and 

236 



HINDU SOCIAL REFORMERS 

valued friend Sir Civilian Administrator, K.C.I.E., or the 
General Sahib, be sure he feels that by this claim he is 
conferring an honour upon himself. 

Where such antipathic communities as the English in 
India on the one hand and the natives of that ancient land 
on the other are concerned, unreserved personal intimacies 
between individuals and families belonging to the intrusive 
and the native stocks respectively, are and must continue 
to be very rare indeed, while a forced and unnatural social 
intercourse between nationalities in every way so dissimilar 
can only have the undesirable result of aggravating the 
mutual contempt and dislike already existing as conse- 
quences of ethnic, climatic, historic, religious, and political 
causes which will and must continue to operate in spite of 
all the present-day social reformers, however amiable and 
well intentioned they may be. 



237 



PART II 

CERTAIN HINDU FESTIVALS AND 
CEREMONIES 

THE HOLI FESTIVAL IN UPPER INDIA 
A LUNAR ECLIPSE IN INDIA 
ASHES TO ASHES 



239 



c^ 



FESTIVAL 




CHAPTER I 

THE H L I 
FESTIVAL IN 
UPPER INDIA 

Section I. — Proces- 
sion through the 
streets — Obscene 
exhibitions — 
Rites and prac- 
tices — Legends. 

T was the season 
of the vernal 
equinox. Since 
early morning 
all the streets 
of Lahore had 
been astir, pre- 
senting a pecu- 
liarly bacchan- 
alian appearance. 
Hundreds and 
hundreds of men 
and women were 
moving about in 
garments be- 
smirched with 
wet daubs of pink 
or yellow colour ; 
their faces often 
disfigured with 
patches of red 
or purple powder. 
Eude fun, a sort 
of dishevelled 
gaiety, prevailed 
on all sides, ac- 



BRAHMANS, THEISTS, AND MUSLIMS OF INDIA 

companied with laughter and foul words not seriously 
meant to hurt, nor apparently giving much offence, though 
couched in terms of quite primitive indecency. And this had 
been the prevailing condition of the streets and lanes of 
the city for several consecutive days. 

All along the principal thoroughfares the crowd kept 
gradually increasing, and through the idle throngs of men, 
women, and children, of lean oxen, sacred bulls, and mangy 
street dogs, I threaded my devious way as well as I could, 
being bound for a house in the street known as the Machhwa 
Bazaar, or Fish Market. As I went along, every flat house- 
top, every window, every balcony was crowded with both 
sexes, all ranks, all classes, and all ages. 

Presently having reached my destination, I was provided 
with a seat in the elevated balcony of a Hindu merchant's 
house, and there, at leisure, surveyed with interest the 
striking scene before me, which was certainly not without 
quaint picturesqueness, a characteristic rarely absent from 
the streets of Lahore with their tall houses and highly 
artistic carved balconies. 

The thousands who occupied every coign of vantage, 
basking in the warm atmosphere of the bright sunny day, 
seemed drowsy with a sort of amorous languor. Though 
with Oriental patience, which tires not, they waited and 
waited undemonstratively, there were indications enough 
that something was expected, from a certain direction. 
Presently these indications became more pronounced, as down 
the long narrow street, fringed on either side by three or four- 
storeyed houses, there came rollicking along a noisy band 
of excited revellers, dripping wet and bespattered all over 
with glaring daubs of red, for this was the crowning day of 
the Hindu saturnalia, misnamed the festival of Holi. One 
glance, and it was evident that some at least of the usually 
sedate and orderly Hindu people were indulging in 
unrestrained licence, while the rest were looking on 
appreciatively under the influence of a strange, almost 
incomprehensible blending of religious mysticism and 
exuberant voluptuousness, born of the warm breath of 
spring in this Eastern land. 

Three loud instruments, discoursing from their brazen 
242 



THE HOLI FESTIVAL IN UPPER INDIA 

throats an excruciating travesty of European music, led 
the way. Immediately behind the musicians was a young 
fellow on horseback, dressed up as a bridegroom, attended 
by rowdy companions, who sang, or rather shouted lustily, 
rhymes of flagrant indecency. As they sang and gesticu- 
lated in corybantic style, they addressed themselves 
pointedly to the occupants of the windows and balconies, 
aiming at them their ribald shafts of buffoonery and coarse 
indecencies, too gross for reproduction or description. 

In the wake of the bridegroom followed a small litter, 
behind whose flapping screens the bride was supposed to be 
concealed. Next came, lumbering along, a big springless 
cart, drawn by a sturdy humped bull, mild-eyed and docile. 
In this jolting vehicle stood two or three tubs of blood-red 
water out of which four or five men and boys were throwing 
the crimson liquid about promiscuously to right and left 
with metal bowls, or else squirting it through long tin 
syringes to the upper windows, where the spectators of the 
better classes were huddled together, habited in their most 
homely garments in anticipation of these rude attentions. 

Presently there came another huge cart freighted with 
that incarnation of amorous passion Krishna himself and 
four or five of the gopis (milkmaids or rather herdswomen), 
who shared his wandering affections. The god and his 
favourites were personated by a handsome young man and 
some frail if fair women of the town. 

For a moment the steady if very slow movement of 
the procession was interrupted by what looked like a 
scuffle in the mud of the street, but on closer inspection 
it turned out to be a gross exhibition of indecency per- 
petrated by mimes under the approving eyes, and, I believe, 
at the suggestion of two native policemen. 

The crowd surged on in a sort of intoxicated fanaticism 
of licentiousness. As hundreds passed along, other hundreds 
followed, equally bent on diffusing the immoral contagion. 

From the streets and street-doors, from the windows, the 
balconies, and the flat housetops, eager onlookers watched 
the mean and tawdry procession, and listened with open 
ears to the libidinous songs or catches which, from time 
to time, filled the air, as one party after another passed 

243 



BRAHMANS, THEISTS, AND MUSLIMS OF INDIA 

ciluug Llie road, lialliiig here and lliere, uuder native police 
direction, to give the preceding parties time to move on. 

Nearly all the women spectators had their faces unveiled, 
and with the girls and boys listened eagerly to the licentious 
rhymes shouted by the bands of revellers who passed along. 
Here and there a woman, a trifle more modest or more 
affected than the others, would draw her chaddar partially 
over her face to conceal it from view. One of them I 
particularly remember on her picturesque carved balcony 
close by, as she displayed the whole of a lovely bare arm 
in the act of slightly adjusting her veil to half hide a 
pretty face from the too ardent eyes of some rude fellow 
in the crowd below. 

But other bridegrooms appeared, other gods took part 
in the procession. Even the chief of the gods, Mahadeva, 
was personated by a whitened man in a yellow flowing 
flax wig, a necklace of immense beads, and a trident in 
his hand. Beside him sat his mountain bride Parvati. 

A group of youths, carried away by the excitement 
of the occasion, insulted, or more correctly amused, the 
spectators by perpetrating the grossest indecencies, aided 
by coarsely fashioned mechanical toys of naked simplicity, 
and their proceedings were not resented except by banter 
and abusive words. 

Again, cartloads of crimson water came lumbering by, 
casting their contents about; again, excruciating music 
filled the outraged air, and erotic songs or rhymes stirred 
up the passions of the multitude. Once more the gods 
of India countenanced the uncouth revelry by their august 
presence. This time it was the elephant-headed Ganesa, 
God of Wisdom, in attendance on another Mahadeva and 
his consort, and then another amorous Krishna added 
sanctity to the scene. 

Near the gods of Mount Meru was an open carriage 
occupied by a couple of courtezans and their attendant 
musicians. Not far behind, on a sort of litter borne on 
the shoulders of four men, appeared a singing-girl who 
delighted the bystanders in a soft soprano voice with a 
song, apparently quite to their taste, which she emphasised 
with not ungraceful movements of her small hands. As 

244 



THE HOLI FESTIVAL IN UPPER INDIA 

she sang, she showed her pretty French shoes and fine 
stockings beyond the edges of her silken skirt, and looked, 
I must own it, really attractive in her jewels and fine 
raiment and her neatly arranged coiffure, plainly visible 
under her gauzy chaddar. 

A comical element, or rather buffoonery of the crudest 
type, was now supplied by a Sadhu (ascetic), a real one I 
was told, who was seated on a rickety cart which swayed 
like a boat in a storm. He was attended by five or six 
persons, his chelas (disciples) perhaps, who shared the cart 
with him, and he had at hand his indispensable iron 
pan of fire and his chillum (pipe) for smoking churrus. 
As he passed before us he rose up on the shaky vehicle 
to make a silly and degrading exhibition of himself. After 
performing an absurd little dance of his own at some per- 
sonal risk, he suddenly snatched off and flung about the 
road the turbans of his fellow-riders, just as a mischievous 
monkey might have done. 

Eor two hours, for three hours, for four hours, the pro- 
cession, a tossing stream of humanity, flowed slowly along, 
with little if any interruption, and very limited variety, down 
the narrow road. And for these slowly moving hours all 
classes of the Hindu community had been pleased spectators 
of the show, and presumably enjoyed its gross extravagances. 
The pompous native official was there, a little shyly it may 
be, and the native editors of the local Akhbars and Patrikas, 
no doubt just for the sake of "copy," with dangerous 
political agitators in their train. Native barristers, hailing 
from the Temple or the Inns of Court, and University gradu- 
ates, did not disdain the show ; while merchants, tradesfolk, 
artisans, labourers, and beggars crowded to it with zest. 
All the Hindu world and only the Hindu world, in its 
various grades was here, wife and family included, 
Muhammadans were conspicuous by their absence. Not 
even one European police officer was present, and, unless 
they were in disguise, no English or American people 
attended to enjoy the treat provided for the benefit of 
all who cared to partake of it. 

At last the tail of the interminable procession disap- 
peared down the street, taking with it the noisy discords, 

245 



BRAHMANS, THEISTS, AND MUSLIMS OF INDIA 

the crimson water, the erotic songs, the complaisant gods 
and goddesses, and the frail sopranos who had claimed our 
attention and admiration ; but leaving behind in the minds 
and hearts of many a one the seeds of an immoral harvest 
in the coming year, 

" Did you observe," I said to my companion, " how that 
girl at the window opposite was listening to the obscene 
songs, and beating time with her fingers ? " 

He nodded assent. 

" Did you also," I went on, " note how the lad carried 
upon the arms of his companions indulged in a deliberate 
and shameless exposure of his person as he looked eagerly 
towards her window ? " 

" I did," said the Hindu, with ,a bland approving smile. 
" I think she is an educated woman, for I saw a book in 
her hand." 

" A moral reader, no doubt ! " I ventured to suggest. 

" Perhaps so," assented my friend with Eastern imper- 
turbability, and a mind so steeped since childhood in the 
atmosphere of the Holi and similar joyous nature-festivals, 
as to be able to regard with vague, undefined religious 
approval the words we had heard, and the sights we had 
that day witnessed together from the pretty balcony in 
which we were seated. 

The uncouth tragi -comedy of life we had seen was 
no doubt only a very expurgated edition of the displays 
of realistic licentiousness which were openly indulged 
in before the advent of British rule, and which are prob- 
ably still not unknown in places more remote from Euro- 
pean influence and supervision than the capital of the 
Punjab. 

It is difficult for a non-Hindu to enter into the feelings 
and ideas of a people who call all things by their real names 
without euphemistic disguises, who use naked words to 
describe natural processes and functions, who while dream- 
ing warm dreams of sexual gratification, love to speculate 
about the soul and the All-soul, till steeped in the mysticism 
and occultism of pantheistic philosophy, they revel in the 
orgies of the Holi festival, and make their gods partakers of 
their happiness, dwelling, while the licence of the Holi is 

246 



THE HOLI FESTIVAL IN UPPER INDIA 

still iu their ears, " on the devotional purity the grand 
festival of spring awakens in Hindu hearts." ^ 

In all parts of the world are known, or have been 
known, joyous festivals — saturnalia, carnivals, and what 
not — coincident annually with seed-time and harvest, or 
perhaps, more correctly, with the equinoxes and solstices ; 
and whatever myth these festivals may be associated with, 
they are none the less the natural outcome of the effect of 
the seasons on the emotions and passions of men. Every- 
where men have experienced annually the quickening 
effects of the spring renew within themselves the mysterious 
wonder of creation and the joy of reproduction, and under 
this spell the more emotional races have given way to 
unrestrained mirth and debauchery, casting aside for the 
moment all the ordinary conventions, often even the 
decencies and moralities of life. The Holi is such a festival, 
being a true expression of the emotions of the Hindu East 
at spring-time, when the warm sun which bronzes the cheek 
of beauty, also subtly penetrates each living fibre of the 
yielding frame, awakening with his mellowing touch 
sensuous dreams, soft desires, and wayward passions, which 
brook no restraint, which dread no danger, and over which 
this metaphysical people readily throw the mantle of their 
most comprehensive and accommodating creed. 

Has one lived in the East and does one still ask why the 
zenana system prevails there, why early marriages are there 
the rule, why lurquas and yashmaJcs are imposed, why the 
harem is protected by high walls and grated windows. If 
so, he knows not the people of the East, and will never 
comprehend them. 

Does one ask, " When will these things all cease to 
be ? " I hardly dare venture a reply. Change of form 
there certainly will be, and ancient rites and customs will 
put on decorous disguises. That at least may be confidently 
predicted, for as I shall presently show there are signs of it 
even now, in the Hola of the Sikhs and the Pawitra (pure) 
Holi of certain well-meaning reformers. 

But the Holi as it annually rages — for rage it does — 

^ The Tribune (a Lahore news]3aper conducted by Hindus), 6th 
April 1899. 

247 



BRAHMANS, THEISTS, AND MUSLIMS OF INDIA 

is in the blood of the Hindu, fermenting in his veins under 
the sun's rays of his native land, and must find a vent for 
its energies, if not on the streets, then elsewhere. 

However, there are in India so many forces, mostly 
extraneous, now at work tending to the discouragement of 
indulgence in public of indecencies of any sort, whether in 
connection with the Holi or any other festival, that we 
may trust that the authorities will, at no distant future, 
feel able to put down with a strong hand such objectionable 
outrages of propriety as I have referred to; and towards 
the attainment of this desirable end the support of the 
better educated classes of the Hindu community may be 
confidently depended upon. 

Certain rites connected with the Holi and their legendary 
explanations are, I think, of sufficient interest to be noticed 
even in this brief account of a very characteristic Hindu 
festival. 

"We find in almost all the Hindu literature, that a 
spring saturnalia called Basantotsava was very reverentially 
observed by the Hindus of the old day. On that occasion 
even princesses and ladies of the noblest classes used to 
dance in public places and the god Madana (Cupid) was 
worshipped." Thus wrote a Hindu, Pandit Eishi Kesh, a 
few years ago.^ His statements may, or may not, be wholly 
correct ; but the Holi or a festival corresponding with it, 
in point of time and resembling it in its joyous extravagances, 
is known throughout the northern parts of India, including 
Bengal, Orissa, and the Central Provinces, and, as might 
have been expected, the procedure or ritual is not the same 
everywhere. Wide divergences in practice may be noted, 
but there are certain resemblances too. Every village in 
Bengal and Upper India gathers its own pile of wood and 
other combustibles for the occasion, and, in keeping with the 
hilarious season, a good deal of rough liberty is sometimes 
taken with other people's property in providing the fuel for 
the annual blaze. In the cities too, wherever possible, each 
several ward has its own bonfire and, at any rate, every 
householder is able to burn before his entrance door two or 
three logs of wood. 

^ Pandit Rishi Kesh, Journal of the Anjuman-i-Punjab, 26th April 1881. 

248 



THE HOLI FESTIVAL IN UPPER INDIA 

Ceremonies of some sort, but by no means identical in 
their details, precede the lighting of the Holi fire, and these 
ceremonies afford some indication of the ideas underlying 
the institution of this festival. In some places it is the 
custom to circumambulate the bonfire seven times with ears 
of barley corn in the hands and then to throw them into the 
fire, and is connected with a belief that in the Holi fire is 
destroyed a monster inimical to the ripening crops. 

Elsewhere, as in Bengal, is burnt " the effigy of an 
uncouth straw image of a giant named Maydhasoor," who 
was destroyed by the God Krishna. 

But a more elaborate ceremonial is said to be observed 
in the United Provinces where the Holi is celebrated with 
the greatest enthusiasm. 

" On Basant Panchami " — I quote from an unsigned 
article which appeared in the Pioneer of the 2nd April 
1883 — " a pile of wood is erected outside the limits of 
the village or Mahalla. Here by a vivid imagination 
are supposed to be gathered together all the sicknesses 
and misfortunes which threaten the inhabitants. 

" Kext, a stalk of the castor-oil plant, together with 
a pice and some betel-nut is planted at the spot by the 
hand of the ever-essential Brahman, who by his won- 
drous power causes it to become a living person. At 
the full moon of the month of Phalgun, the Hindu 
(man, woman, and child) smears his body with a paste 
of flour and perfumes (called whatan), and consigns the 
scrapings of his body to the pyre. By this act he suc- 
ceeds in removing also all future evils from his person. 
Then each one throws a thread, the exact length of his 
own height, into the heap. The moment the moon 
becomes full the living castor-oil individual gives up 
the ghost — the pile of wood with its accumulation of 
future disasters, and the thread substitutes, is set fire 
to, and all possible evil removed for at least a year." 

Of course there are superstitions connected with the 
Holi and many legends to account for them. 

The origin and details of the above rites is thus explained 
in a Sanskrit book named Nirnaymnrita, cited by the 
anonymous writer referred to above. Long ages ago when 
Yudhisthira reigned in Hastinapur, a dreadful plague 

249 



BRAHMANS, THEISTS, AND MUSLIMS OF INDIA 

visited the country, and caused the destruction of vast 
numbers of the king's subjects. In his trouble Yudhisthira 
consulted Krishna, at that time incarnate on earth, as the 
King of Dwarka. Krishna assured his kinsman that the 
direful plague was the work of a terrible she-demon named 
Holika, who destroyed the people in their sleep. He pre- 
scribed the rites connected with the annual Holi fire as an 
effectual means of driving the monster away, and, whether 
at the god's suggestion or ou their own initiative, is not 
quite clear, the people indulged in foul and indecent speech 
and abuse to hasten the demon's departure, for after all 
Holika, although cruel, was at least modest and sensitive. 
By this crude, inartistic legend, the annual bonfires of the 
Holi, are justified by the Brahmas, on what we would call 
sanitary grounds, and is so far interesting, though it does 
not really appreciate or apprehend the vera cmisa of this 
great springtide festival. 

Another legend explanatory of Holi is this : 

" Holika or Holi was, they say, sister of Sambat or 
Sanvat, the Hindu year. Once at the beginning of all 
things, Sambat died, and Holi in her excessive love for 
her brother insisted on being burnt on his pyre, and 
by her devotion he was restored to life. The Holi fire is 
now burnt every year to commemorate this tragedy." ^ 

According to Punjabi expositors of the spring festival 
and its attendant ceremonies, there once lived a king who 
acquired by austerities and magic rites so much power that 
he waged successful war with the very gods themselves. 
Puffed up with pride, he desired to be made greater even 
than the god Vishnu, and his claim to this superiority, though 
generally recognised, was boldly repudiated by his own son 
Prahlad a devoted worshipper of that deity. Prahlad's 
royal father, irritated beyond measure by his son's preference 
for the god, and carried away by an overweening conceit, 
resolved to put an end to his own son, but somehow, through 
the intervention of Vishnu, all his attempts to kill him failed 
signally. As the king's wrath was not appeased, it was 

1 W. Crooke, The Popular Religion and Folk-lore of Northern India, 
vol. ii. p. 315. 

250 



THE HOLI FESTIVAL IN UPPER INDIA 

decided to effect Prahlad's destruction in another way. The 
king's sister Holi, who had reason to believe herself proof 
against the effect of fire, proposed to sit upon a blazing pyre 
with her obnoxious nephew in her lap — in full expectation 
that while she herself would come out scathless from the 
ordeal, the recalcitrant boy would perish in the flames. But 
the result of this cruel attempt was quite the reverse of what 
had been anticipated, for, by the will and power of Vishnu, it 
was Holi who was destroyed, while Prahlad came forth un- 
injured. The multitude, overjoyed at the result, rushed in 
and in wild delight flung about the ashes of the pyre of 
unkind Holi, and the event has ever since been celebrated 
by a great annual festival. 

It is evident that this primitive legend affords no justifi- 
cation for the lewd excesses of the Holi. Possibly a festival 
based on the Puranic legend of Prahlad and his wicked 
aunt may have synchronised with a joyous festival in honour 
of the advent of spring, and got mixed up with it in the 
popular mind. If so, the incongruity I have alluded to is 
at least explicable. 



251 



THE HOLI FESTIVAL IN UPPEE INDIA 

— continued 




Section II. — The Hola of the 
Sikhs — A new departure — 
The presumption of certain 
women reproved. 

HOSE well-known Hindu 
sectarians, the Sikhs, 
have their own peculiar 
way of celebrating the 
Holi festival, which, 
however, they name 
Hola, apparently to dis- 
criminate it from the 
orthodox saturnalia with 
which it synchronises. 
I learnt that the best spot from which to view the Hola 
procession — a good deal of Indian religion is manifest in 
processions and melas (fairs) — was near the Sonari Musjid, 
so thither I directed my steps. On the way I met an 
orderly party of school children singing hhajans (hymns), 
and ascertained that they belonged to the new Sanathan 
Dharm Sahha. They were, I fancy, supposed to be engaged 
in pure devotional exercises, and to have had no eyes or ears 
for licentious words and obscene gestures, which could be 
heard and seen everywhere in the streets along which they 
had passed. Most of the shops were shut, for the owners 
were not disposed to risk the horse-play or endure the 
insulting chaff of the unruly man-in-the-street. 

Through the courtesy of the custodians of the Sonari 
Musjid (the golden mosque), I was accommodated with a seat 
in the window of a sort of anteroom of the sacred edifice, 

252 



THE HOLI FESTIVAL IN UPPER INDIA 

overlooking the road, and, as I sat there, successive parties 
of men and boys passed by, some singing songs of the loves 
of the old time, and some songs or rhymes of gross obscenity 
which v^ere pointedly addressed to the women and children 
in the upper windows and balconies or on the flat roofs of 
the houses. 

Although I had a carpet to sit upon, and a long pillow, 
or bolster, to rest against, I was glad to leave my seat in 
the window and go out upon the steps of the Musjid to 
watch the Sikh procession as it surged down the street. 
The position at the meeting of two streets was an ad- 
vantageous one, as it faced and commanded a long stretch 
of the road along which the crowd was approaching. 

A band of musicians, armed with two cornets, a bassoon, 
a clarionet, a big drum, cymbals, and kettle-drum, was drawn 
up at the foot of the steps of the mosque to welcome the 
advancing crowd. It struck up the once popular tune of 
" Just before the Battle, Mother," as the head of the proces- 
sion came within two or three hundred yards of us, while 
another, and equally noisy band, which had accompanied the 
Sikhs, played another English air with ear-splitting energy. 
The advancing multitude divided off at the foot of the stairs 
into two streams, passing on the two sides of the mosque. 
When the main body of the processionists, with banners 
flying and singing hhaj'ans, arrived, a halt was made, and 
gave me an opportunity of observing that there were many 
leading Sikh gentlemen in the throng, although almost 
disguised out of recognition by the coloured paint with 
which their faces had been daubed over. Some had taken 
the wise precaution of protecting their eyes with goggles, 
against the showers of coloured powders to which they were 
exposed along the route. 

Flag-staffs surmounted by spear-heads were borne, in 
some cases at least, by Akalis, conspicuous by their warlike 
headgear. Any halt was a signal for quantities of red and 
purple powder (for both kinds were used) to be flung at 
the crowd from the sides of the road, or any position of 
advantage, such as an upper window or balcony. This was 
a reversal of the procedure followed when the Hindu pro- 
cession passed along. In that case it was the processionists 

253 



BRAHMANS, THEISTS, AND MUSLIMS OF INDIA 

who flung the coloured water on the bystanders and 
onlookers. I noticed some women casting upon the Sikhs 
below, handfuls of powder from the low housetop of a 
neighbouring dwelling, where many of the fair sex with a 
number of children were gathered together. Against this 
behaviour a loud and angry protest was made from below, 
and the police interfered, it being too indecorous for women, 
even on an occasion like this, to presume to throw the 
powder on men. I kept an eye on the offenders, and was 
amused to discover that they did not discontinue their 
audacious practices, although they indulged in them a little 
more circumspectly or surreptitiously. 

All was not fun and ribaldry in the streets; for the 
prevailing licence of speech and act occasionally provoked 
a fight, and hard blows were then freely exchanged; for 
Punjabis are tough, and though usually good-tempered or 
more properly imperturbable, can lay about them right 
vigorously when excited to anger. And the meekest might 
well be roused at some of the tricks practised, especially 
on the country bumpkins who visit the town on this 
occasion. Spotting one of these, a fat bunneah might come 
up to him hastily, and ask if he was disposed to earn a 
trifle by just helping to carry a pot of ghee, urgently 
wanted a couple of streets away. 

" Why not ! " says the strong countryman, and accompany- 
ing the hunneah to a place where the jar is supposed to have 
been left by another fellow, he cheerfully lifts it up and 
places it on his head. Before he has walked many paces, 
the pot is broken on his head by a blow from a stick or a 
stone, and its contents — not ghee certainly — flows over the 
unsuspecting yokel, to the huge delight of the jeering rabble. 
A practical joke not unlikely to provoke a row. 

These breaches of the peace, however, had nothing to do 
with the hymning Sikh procession, which was, as indeed it 
was intended to be, a dignified public advertisement, partly 
for official edification, of the disapproval of the Sikhs of 
the usual licence and freedom of the Holi, and it was at the 
same time a suggestion carried into practice, but ludicrously 
inappropriate, for the celebration in future of the great 
joyous spring festival of their ancestors. 

254 



THE HOLI FESTIVAL IN UPPER INDIA 

What legend we are to have in support and justification 
of the new Hola, remains to be seen. 

That this Hola, organised by a certain advanced section 
of the Sikh community has not displaced the Holi even in 
the sacred places of the sect, will be apparent from the 
following extract taken from a Sikh newspaper : — 

" A correspondent writes from Amritsar : ' The Holi 
festival in Amritsar was a very ugly affair. Even in 
the Golden Temple people lost all sense of shame. 
Obscene language was freely used in the presence of 
Grunth Sahib} Formerly no one was allowed to put 
off the turban of a Sikh; but this time no authority 
appeared to be exercised on the lawless mob. This 
insult to Sikh susceptibilities in the most sacred shrine 
of the Sikhs is deeply to be regretted.' " ^ 

^ The Sacred Book of the Sikhs. 
- The Khalsa, 12th April 1899. 



255 




THE HOLI FESTIVAL IN UPPEE INDIA 

— continued 

Section III. — Pawitra Holi — A pure Holi introduced recently by some 
Indian reformers, backed by Christian missionaries. 

S an example of the retention of the name of a 
festival, while entirely ignoring its raison 
d'Ure, and discarding all its traditional pecu- 
liarities, nothing could well be better than 
the Pawitra (pure) Holi inaugurated in 
recent years by well-intentioned Hindu re- 
formers in conjunction with certain Christian missionaries. 

Let the following notice from which I have struck out 
the names, speak for itself : — 

" Pawitea Holi 

" will be celebrated this year as usual for three days, 
viz., 26th, 27th, and 28th February 1896, in the 
gardens between the Lohari and Mori Gates. The 
following programme will be observed : — 

" Wednesday, 27th February, Bhajans by Eababis and 
5 to 8 p.m. Latifas. 

Lectures by — 

Lala on " Nauches." 

Babu on " Temper- 
ance." 

Bhai on " Holi." 

" Feiday, 29th February, Bhajans. Exposition 

8 to 10 a.m. from Grunth Sahib. 

Eecitation of Veda Man- 
tras, by the boys of the 
Dayanand High School. 
3 to 4 p.m. Bhajans by Eababis and 

Latifas. 
256 



THE HOLI FESTIVAL IN UPPER INDIA 

" Fkiday, 28th February, Lecture by Eev. ■ ^ 

4 to 5 p.m. on " Personal Purity." 

5 to 8 p.m. Dr. ^ will preside. 

Brief Eeport of the 
Punjab Purity Associa- 
tion will be read. 

Lala will move a 

Eesolution expressing 
regret at the unwork- 
ableness of the clause 
provided in the Muni- 
cipal Act regarding 
brothels, 

Lala 1 will address 

Lala [ the 

Lala J meeting. 

Members of the 

Temperance Society, 
Amritsar, will enter- 
tain the public with 
temperance songs. 

" All are cordially invited." 

1 American missionary. 



257 



A-LUMAR- 
-E.CLIP6E.« 



-Jli -r- 






V---:M- 



t-L. W.l ^-^^ 







258 



CHAPTER II 

A LUNAR EC- 
LIPSE IN INDIA 

Sceneat thePool of Im- 
mortality — Hindu 
legend of the cause 
of eclipses — Alms- 
giving — Progress 
of obscuration — 
Legends of the 
Pool. 

T was in the small 
hours of a De- 
cember night. 
The atmosphere 
was crystal 
clear, the air 
I keenly cold. In 
the blue sky 
sailed the full 
moon, and with 
the attendant 
stars, brightly 
beautiful, made a 
truly glorious 
spectacle. 

At my feet lay 
the Poo^ of Immor- 
tality (Amritsar) 
mirroring softly 
in its glassy sur- 
face the Golden 
Temple of the 
Sikhs and the 
tranquil stars 
above. 

Standing in 



A LUNAR ECLIPSE IN INDIA 

the middle of the pool, a spacious sheet of artificial water, 
the temple is only accessible on one side by means of a 
stone causeway built on arches. 

The sacred pool, which is rectangular in shape, is 
surrounded on all sides by wide stone and marble pave- 
ments and many trees, beyond which rise moderately lofty 
buildings of Oriental character with one unfortunate ex- 
ception, a tall clock tower of modern European design, 
quite out of harmony with its surroundings. Notwith- 
standing the incongruous bastard-Gothic clock tower, and 
the many undeniably rough and mean features about the 
precincts of the fane, the whole scene was, under the 
spell of the soft moonlight, mellowed into a picture of 
dreamlike and captivating beauty. 

With some Sikh companions, I sauntered slowly round 
the pool. 

Under the dark shadows of the fig trees many men and 
women were moving about noiselessly with unshod feet 
upon the marble pavements, and so was I with only velvet 
moccasins on my feet. 

Presently, in the hush of the still night, a faint shadow 
began creeping, like the mysterious hand of destiny, on to 
the edge of the moon's disc, and then, suppressed voices 
repeating the words, "Dan poon ka val^" (This is the 
time to bestow alms), were heard on all sides, as an army 
of beggars suggested their claims upon the assembling 
people with many alluring hints in respect to the great 
merit and special advantages of liberality at this momentous 
hour, when the bright moon-god was in the grasp of the 
evil demon Eahu ; for was it not said by them of old that 
it was this disappointed demon who through the ages had 
been pursuing sun and moon to devour them. For the 
cause of his malice we must go back to that remote age 
when the gods and the Asuras at the suggestion of 
Narayana (Vishnu) churned the ocean to obtain Amrita 
— the water of life. What wonders occurred on that 
momentous occasion are they not recorded in the Mahab- 
harata; but here it will suffice to recall to memory that 
when at length Dhanvantari arose out of the seething 
ocean, bearing in his hands a vessel containing the precious 

259 



BRAHMANS, THEISTS, AND MUSLIMS OF INDIA 

nectar which had been churned out of the deep, the Asuras 
claimed the prize and prepared to dispute its possession 
with the gods. It was an extremely critical moment ! What 
if the Asuras should drink the Amrita and enjoy immortality ! 

Immediate action was necessary, and Narayana was 
equal to the emergency. Assuming the bewitching female 
form of Maya (illusion), the god easily persuaded the 
Asuras to part with the vessel of nectar. When they 
discovered the trick of which they had been the deluded 
victims, the Asuras pursued the gods, who had been 
hurriedly taking draughts of the elixir. In the company 
of the celestials, a demon named Eahu disguised as a god 
partook of some of the precious liquid, but before it could 
pass beyond his throat, he was discovered and denounced 
by those ever watchful celestials, the sun and the moon. 

Instantly Narayana severed Eahu's head from his body ; 
but the head having partaken of the Amrita was, of course, 
immortal, and, bent on vengeance, has ever since that remote 
time persistently pursued the great luminaries through 
space, swallowing them up periodically, only to find them 
escape through his severed throat. 

And now, before our very eyes, the terrible monster was 
once again gratifying his desire for vengeance, as he had 
done on countless occasions in the eeons of the past. 

Indeed, this critical moment afforded an opportunity not 
to be lightly lost ; for, as the Brahman mendicants declared, 

" Yaha ka dan 
Ganga ka ashnan" 

(a gift here is equal to a dip in the Ganges), and 

" Data ka dan 
Gareeb ka ashnan " 

(the rich man who gives is like the poor man who bathes). 
And yet I noticed that the liberality of the visitors was on 
the poorest of possible scales, usually extending to nothing 
more than a handful of grain, doled out to the more 
importunate of the priestly mendicants. Nevertheless, on 
these all-important occasions, there are always some Hindus 
who are generous, and perhaps even lavish in their gifts to 
the poor — but in such cases the element of self-interest is 

260 



A LUNAR ECLIPSE IN INDIA 

often too apparent, as when from prudential considerations 
ghee (clarified butter) is given to the Brahmans. When 
this is done, the donors first melt the ghee in a pot, and 
then view their own countenances in the liquid butter. 
After which they hand it over to the beggars, together with 
their oivn earthly trouhles ; a shrewd, if selfish, act of 
liberality, which the hereditary priests of India are good 
enough to encourage. 

An eclipse is a favourable time for securing other 
benefits besides the very desirable one of parting with one's 
own immediate griefs, vexations, and difficulties ; for it is 
well known that mantras (charms and spells) written during 
an eclipse, especially during the period of total obscuration, 
are fifty thousand times more efficacious than those written 
at other times, and, consequently, the fleeting minutes 
are diligently utilised by many a sagacious Brahman 
scribe, with a keen eye to his own future gain. 

While men were busy in these very mundane affairs, 
the mysterious shadow crept onwards over the face of the 
moon, and, as the obscurity increased, the fulgent stars and 
planets grew even brighter than they were before, till they 
literally blazed out of a cloudless sky. Over the darkening 
earth the gloom was slowly spreading, and the umbrage of 
the banyan trees which sheltered the shrine of Siva at one 
corner of the tank, looked impenetrably black. 

But now, one by one, tiny lamps, lit by Brahman 
worshippers, appeared around the noble sheet of water, 
lending a new beauty to the strange scene. Devout Hindus 
of both sexes entered the sacred water uttering prayers, 
while accommodating Brahmans took charge of their clothes 
and lighted charcoal braziers to afford them warmth after 
their cold immersion. 

There were hundreds present who had learnt in the 
schools how European science accounted for the lunar 
eclipse; but in the increasing obscurity the old gods of 
India crept silently out and once more asserted their 
ascendancy over the hearts of even such as, under rational- 
istic or other influences, had become alienated from or 
forgetful of the national faith and its obligations. 

In the mysterious awe-inspiring gloom, hereditary 
261 



BRAHMANS, THEISTS, AND MUSLIMS OF INDIA 

feelings, early impressions, and the teachings of the ancient 
religion, recovered their potency, with the result that 
discarded beliefs were almost unconsciously readopted for 
the present occasion at least. 

The twinkling lights kindled by the Brahmans multiplied 
in number as the darkness blotted out the celestial moon- 
light, and, in the murk, enlightened Hindu reformers, and 
cultured graduates of the University, oblivious of consist- 
ency or Western science, took a stealthy dip into the chill 
water of immortality and surreptitiously responded to the 
appeal " Dan poon ka vala." 

I watched it all in the weird gloom of that chill 
December night, and realised the charm of the hoary 
myth of Kahu and the Amrita churned from the deep by 
gods and demons, as I recalled it again to mind here by 
Amritsar, the Pool of Immortality, associating, through the 
local legendary, the old titanic story with the water at my feet. 

Tradition has it that as far back as those now remote 
days when the gods lived in the fair " land of the five rivers," 
there was at this very spot a sacred pool, and on its banks 
ascetics and sages of the old-time lived and worshipped. 
This pool was known as the Amrit Kund, because a portion 
of the Amrita, or nectar of immortality, had been somehow 
spilt or collected there. For Sikhs, however, wishing to 
sever themselves from the past of Hinduism, the claim of 
the pool to consideration depends upon a very much more 
modern event connected with the history of the fourth 
guru of their sect, Guru Eam Das (a.d. 1574-1581). 

The story runs thus : In the time of the guru just 
named there lived a man who had a beautiful daughter, 
devoted heart and soul to religion. Being for some reason 
or other angry with the girl, the father gave her in marriage 
to a man with maimed hands and feet, some say a leper, 
and the heartless parent scoffingly bid his daughter support 
herself and her helpless husband upon the bounty of God. 

In Indian fashion, the young wife performed her duty 
to herself and her crippled husband, by collecting alms 
from the people around, and in her begging tours she 
usually carried her lord in a basket on her head. One 
day she left her burden in the shade of some trees near 

262 




•^-^^ 



A LUNAR ECLIPSE IN INDIA 

a weed-covered pond, and went off to a neighbouring village 
to beg for food. While she was away, her husband noticed 
with astonishment that a lame crow came and dipped its 
injured legs into the water, and by doing so, not only 
recovered the use of those limbs, but had its plumage 
miraculously bleached to a perfectly white colour. The 
healing power of the water so strikingly manifested might, 
thought the cripple, benefit himself too, and so he crept to 
the edge of the pond, and entered the water, with the 
result that, to his infinite joy, he became whole again. 

When the dutiful wife returned to the spot she could 
not recognise her transformed husband, and did not believe 
that the sound man before her was the cripple she had 
left in the basket under the trees ; but her very natural 
doubts were dispelled when the Guru Earn Das himself 
assured her that the man was indeed her own husband. 

Here then at the site, no doubt, of the ancient Amrit 
Kund of the fore-time, was a fit place for a temple to the 
living God, and Eam Das therefore had a beautiful tank 
excavated, and also laid the foundations of a place of 
worship where the present building — which is of considerably 
later date — now stands. 

Such is the Sikh legend connected with the famous 
" Pool of Immortality " — Amritsar — which gives its name 
to a considerable and important city. The legend, strained 
and artificial in its association with old Hindu mythological 
conceptions, and uncouth in its details, is neither impressive 
nor poetical ; but is, it seems to me, fairly characteristic of 
Sikh culture. 

Discussing with my Sikh companions at the temple, 
Guru Eam Das and his doings, the time slipped quickly 
by till dawn began to appear in the east. 

With the dawn the number of idle spectators, bathers, 
and beggars increased considerably. The wet marble pave- 
ments, now thickly covered with a mass of trampled grain of 
various kinds, presented an unsightly appearance ; my velvet 
moccasins — leather shoes were not allowed within the 
temple enclosure — were soppy, and I was glad to escape 
from the motley and unpicturesque crowd which looked 
both silly and tawdry in the searching daylight. 

263 



AS/IEIS -» 
TO A5/1ES- 




264 



CHAPTER 
III 

ASHES TO 
ASHES 

Hindu funeral rites 
and their under- 
lying sentiments. 

ITH rare ex- 
ceptions, the 
Hindus of 
Northern 
India cremate 
their dead.^ I 
had often 
chanced to get 
a distant view of 

' "In the south 
the ascetic followers 
of both Siva and 
Vishnu bury the dead 
(Dubois, 56) ; so do 
the Vaishnava, Vai- 
ragis, and Sannyasis 
in the north of India, 
and the Saiva Jogis. 
The class of Hindu 
weavers called Yogis 
have adopted a simi- 
lar practice ("Ward, i. 
201) ; all the castes 
in the south, that 
wear the Linga, do 
the same (Birch, i. 
27)."— Professor H. 
H. Wilson, Essays 
on the Religion of the 
Hindus, p. 196. 



ASHES TO ASHES 

a Hindu cremation, and had gruesome recollections of a few 
I had seen on the banks of the Ganges, at Benares, and else- 
where; but never having witnessed at close quarters the 
ritual actually followed on such occasions, I went one warm 
autumn morning to the crematorium of Lahore, in company 
with a Hindu friend, on the mere chance of being present 
at a funeral there. And I did see one, a most quaint and 
touching, though not unbarbarous old-world ceremonial, 
amply repaying the curiosity which had led me to pry 
into the customs of my neighbours, and the teachings of 
a religion hoary with age, but not yet, by any means, in 
decrepitude. 

The place set apart for the cremation of the Hindus of 
Lahore is reached by a narrow road alongside a broad 
surface drain and through some ill-kept gardens. It is a 
large space enclosed by a high brick wall, and is entered 
through a narrow doorway. Splendid wide - spreading 
banyans with opulent foliage and fine x^ipal trees afford 
ample shade, and lend agreeable picturesqueness to the 
quiet spot, where I noticed, with a sort of uncomfortable 
eerie feeling, the enormous stacks of firewood provided for 
the crematory requirements of a populous city. Just out- 
side the gate is a low platform, about ten feet by seven and 
not more than fifteen inches high, built of bricks and mortar, 
at the foot of one of those sacred fig trees which grace so 
many a quiet scene in India. This platform is known as 
the Adhmarag or half-way place. Close at hand, also over- 
shadowed by trees, is a small well, furnished with a wheel 
and axle, and twenty or thirty yards farther off, near a 
temple of Mahadeva, is a masonry tank of stagnant water, 
which I found covered with a thick emerald-green scum. 

When I entered the crematorium some men were busily 
engaged sweeping the grounds, which were more neatly 
kept than I had expected. No cremation was in progress, 
so I had time to look about me. Here and there were 
Samadhs, or cenotaphs, if they may be called so, erected 
over the ashes of cremated Hindus of a past generation ; 
but they bore neither date nor inscription. These very 
Eastern structures of plastered brickwork naturally attracted 
my attention, but I was more impressed by four quite new 

265 



BRAHMANS, THEISTS, AND MUSLIMS OF INDIA 

tombs/ two of them in marble, so European in style and 
finish as to suggest the idea that they had been recently 
transplanted to their present site from the neighbouring 
Christian cemetery. They were Samadhs like the rest, 
and, though bearing tablets, had nothing to do with any 
actual interments, but were none the less interesting as 
visible signs of the imitative spirit of the educated Hindu 
in his present transitional state. I would not like to affirm 
that these tombs do not represent something more than that, 
for their durable material and clear-cut English inscriptions 
may possibly be the outcome of a new craving in the Hindu 
heart for an abiding place in human memory. I hope, indeed, 
it may be so ; since it seems to me that the cremating races 
who happen also to believe in metempsychosis must only too 
easily forget their ancestors, and lose, as the Hindus have 
done, all real hold of the genuine history of preceding times. 
While I waited in expectancy in the grounds of the 
crematorium, my companion was telling me that a Hindu, 
whatever be his rank or station in life, must not, on any 
account, be allowed to die in his bed, but on the ample 
bosom of mother-earth, nor should he be permitted to expire 
under a roof, however magnificent, but beneath the free 
and open expanse of heaven. When he has breathed his 
last, his son, or other near relation, should place in the 
palm of his now pulseless right hand, a lighted lamp 
(known as Diiva-wattee) to guide his faltering footsteps 
through the great unknown and untrodden darkness beyond. 
I had read of these things before, and as I listened now I 
felt that the JDiiva-wattee in the dead hand appealed to 
one's feelings with a pretty sentimentality not to be denied ; 
but as to the other practices, those connected with mother- 
earth or the boundless vault of heaven, what possible defence 
could be offered for them, when it is too evident that, with 
quite unnecessary cruelty, they must inevitably extinguish 
the last lingering ray of hope in the heart of the dying ? 
And, sentiment apart, it is well known that these practices, 
in conjunction with customs which grew out of them, have 
been productive of no little evil and many a tragic event in 
the Hindu household. 

^ Illustrated in the tailpiece, p. 276. 
266 



ASHES TO ASHES 

Finding that no funeral arrived, my companion and I, 
having nothing better to do just then, proceeded together, 
on foot, towards the city. After passing through the Taxali 
gate, we came upon a funeral party. 

The corpse, which lay upon a light bier, was covered 
with a red cloth and was borne, feet forward, by four men. 
An Acharaja'^ (a low-caste Brahman priest, whose special 
function it is to conduct funeral rites) was in close attend- 
ance near the head of the corpse, which the bearers were 
hurrying along at a brisk pace. As the funeral party 
wended its way through the narrow and crowded lane 
where we met it, the Acharaja kept crying out at short 
intervals " Earn, hoi Ram " (Eam, say Earn), to which the 
corpse-bearers responded regularly and loudly " Ba7n, Bhai, 
Ram " (Eam, brother, Eam) as they scurried on their way 
with little ceremony. Occasionally the bier on which a 
Hindu is carried for cremation is shaped like a ship fitted 
with sails, perhaps of coloured silk, and adorned with flaunt- 
ing pennons ; but the funeral I am describing was a very 
ordinary one, and there was not even the usual band of 
noisy musical instruments in attendance. 

Amongst the followers was one, the chief mourner, who 
carried in his hand an earthen vessel like a Grecian amphora, 
and also a leaf-cone containing some barley meal, wherewith 
to make pindas, which, although only pellets of dough, are 
of extreme importance in Hindu funeral rites. 

While we followed the quickly moving procession, my 
companion explained to me, with reference to these ^^wit^as, 
that after death they have to be placed near the corpse, 
also at the threshold of the home of the deceased, near the 
gate of the city, on the Admarag, or half-way place, and 
beside the pyre. For thirteen consecutive days after death, 
and thereafter at intervals, pindas are made and offered 
for the express, if somewhat naive purpose, of supplying 
materials for the formation of a new body for the freed 
soul, an operation which takes place very gradually, com- 
mencing with the most important member of all, the head, 
and is not completed in less than nine months. 

iJn the United Provinces of Agra and Oudh, the Acliaraja is usually 
termed Maha-Brahman or Maha-Patra (the great vessel). 

267 



BRAHMANS, THEISTS, AND MUSLIMS OF INDIA 

Christians and Muslims commit their dead to the safe 
keeping of the earth, which is our home, in the sure and 
certain hope of an eventual resurrection, but they who, 
like the Hindus, stand by and witness the complete de- 
struction by fire of the human form divine, who see it 
disappear amidst the devouring flames, feel, as the pinda 
ceremony sufficiently proves, the necessity for some material, 
some tangible substance wherewith to reclothe the disembodied 
soul, if it is to have a real existence after death, for, say 
what we may, it is certain that a purely spiritual, im- 
material existence is for the bulk of mankind, may I not 
say for all of us, an utterly unimaginable state, and one 
that most assuredly fails to satisfy the imperious cravings 
of human nature for a substantial, sensuous existence in 
continuation of this earthly life. 

As the funeral procession passed through the gate of 
the city, the Acharaja changed his loud monotonous chant 
of " Bam, bol Bam " to " Har bdse so Bindraban ^ hai " (where 
God is present that place is Bindraban), to which the 
corpse-bearers now responded : " Yihi to Bindraban hai " 
(this is Bindraban). These cries were repeated alternately, 
without intermission, till the body arrived near the entrance 
of the crematory and was placed on the Admarag. 

I found on inquiry that the deceased was a physician 
by caste, and of the sect of the Gusains. Some thirty men 
accompanied the bier, and in default of a son the adopted 
son of the dead man was the chief mourner already referred 
to. Very soon about forty or fifty women came up, some 
wailing, though not ostentatiously. While the body with 
its head towards the gate of the crematorium lay upon the 
platform, the Acharaja in attendance repeated some appro- 
priate, or at any rate some duly prescribed, sacred Sanskrit 
texts, or mantras. Then the adopted son, with head hair- 
less save for one scalp-lock, and face clean-shaven, even to 
the eyebrows, came forward to perform his duty. He was 
a young man, slight and spare, with a look of mild anxiety 
in his somewhat sunken eyes. He went round the body 

^ Bindraban. A learned Pandit explained to me that Bindra means a 
company, an assembly, especially of Davctas or gods, and Ian means a 
wood, a grove. So Bindraban may be rendered the grove of the gods. 

268 



ASHES TO ASHES 

once, pouring water on the ground out of the earthen vessel 
which he had brought from home. At the completion of 
his circumambulation he lifted up, above his head, the same 
vessel, which was probably half full of water, and then 
broke it to pieces on the platform with a sudden and 
startling crash, quite close to the head of the corpse. As 
he did so he uttered a cry ; only the monosyllable " Ah," 
but delivered with such depth of feeling and perfection of 
pathetic intonation that it filled the air with a sense of 
mourning and sorrow. It came into my mind, naturally 
enough, that the breaking of the clay vase was symbolic 
of man's frailty ; his body, like the waterpot, being destined 
to eventual and inevitable destruction. However, my com- 
panion interrupted my reflections by informing me, in a 
whisper, that at the crash of the shattered vase, shivered 
to fragments on the Admarag the soul of the dead man 
had become dimly aware that some member of the family 
was dead, that some one, or other, had deserted the hearth, 
but that its confused consciousness did not go beyond this 
vague, if painful impression. 

This part of the ceremony being completed, the 
Acharaj'a made a few pindas of barley meal and placed 
them near the head of the corpse; then followed sundry 
sprinklings of water with tufts of the sacred Kuslm grass 
by the adopted son, under the instructions of the same 
priest. After that, the body was removed from the plat- 
form to the neighbourhood of the well, where the red shawl 
was taken off. The corpse, which was completely swathed 
in cotton wraps, had water poured over it freely. This 
done, the shawl was replaced, and the deceased was carried 
towards the gate of the crematorium feet foremost, the men 
exclaiming " Yihi to Bindrahan hai" while some of the 
women raised a subdued wail. 

The platform had hardly been vacated when down 
dropped four watchful crows from the leafy branches 
above, and hopping on to the Admarag quietly swallowed 
up the pindas of barley meal, after a little friendly tussle 
amongst themselves. No one interfered; no one resented 
their apparently rude officiousness ; so I presume the crows 
were quite in order, and probably only doing their duty. 

269 



BRAHMANS, THEISTS, AND MUSLIMS DF INDIA 

In the ample grounds of the crematory, the body still 
lying on its bier was laid in an open space. The men now 
retired while the women gathered round it and, this being 
the appointed time for the demonstration, wailed aloud, 
beating their breasts and crying " Hde ! " (Alas !). One 
woman I noticed let her chaddar, or veil, slip off. Indeed 
she tied it under her arms, leaving her shapely head and 
shoulders exposed, and then, beat her chest and forehead 
vigorously, while uttering exclamations of sorrow and 
tender regret. She was, perhaps, the deceased physician's 
daughter, or his adopted daughter-in-law, and I trust I am 
not doing the good lady any injustice in thinking that, even 
in her grief, she was not unmindful of effect, not indifferent 
to the impression she made upon the living who are ever 
more present than the dead. 

Meanwhile some male members of the family went off 
to arrange for fuel. Presently a large quantity of firewood, 
in logs of about five to seven inches in diameter, was 
brought up in a hand-barrow, and as much as was needed 
for the cremation was soon on the spot. 

When a part of the fuel had been piled up by an 
attendant attached to the crematorium and some straw 
had been laid upon it, the corpse was placed upon the pyre, 
face upwards, with a small earthen pot near the head, to 
mark or indicate its position later on. The Acharaja now 
repeated some texts; the wailing was redoubled, and the 
women claimed the right of seeing the dear face for the 
last time. To gratify them, presumably in accordance with 
immemorial custom, the red covering was removed, and 
the white cloth beneath it also lifted, so as to expose the 
dead man's face to view. Sorrow was genuinely expressed 
on the countenances of many bystanders. Tears fell from 
many eyes, and the manifestations of grief on the part of 
the women were, if not in all cases quite sincere, at least 
sufficiently dramatic. After a minute or two some men 
interfered to end the painful scene. The women were 
gently requested to stand back; the cold, set features of 
the corpse were veiled once more, and the body was turned 
over face doionivards on its uneven bed. It had had its 
last glimpse of our sun and sky. Who that has stood by 

270 



ASHES TO ASHES 

the unfilled grave of a loved one has not felt the cruel thud 
of the clods as, spadeful after spadeful, they fell upon the 
coffin and gradually, but effectually, shut it out of view for 
ever ; but the inversion of the corpse, which was somewhat 
roughly done, seemed to me still more distressing, and to 
savour strongly of primitive barbarism, though I dare say 
the idea underlying it is that the man should enter the 
new life as he entered this, face downwards. Many of the 
spectators, although of course prepared for this uncouth 
proceeding, were visibly affected by its apparently purpose- 
less inhumanity. 

The coloured shawl was now replaced finally, a few 
small bits of sandal-wood were put upon the body, more 
for show than anything else, and then heavy pieces of wood 
were rudely piled upon it, eliciting from the women many 
exclamations of pitying sorrow, a sort of parting valediction. 
In this fashion was the pyre built up, with alternate layers 
of grass and wood, the corpse being in the centre of the 
pile. 

For fire to light the fuel, application was made to a 
young yogi, Goraknath Ka Padri (priest of Goraknath) he 
designated himself, officially installed within the walled 
enclosure of the crematorium in a hut of his own. This 
holy man seemed to have nothing more important to attend 
to than smoking chumcs, receiving small gifts, and supplying 
the fire required for kindling funeral pyres. 

With the lighted torch the adopted son set fire to the 
pile on which the corpse lay, and in a few minutes both 
grass and wood were kindled into a fierce blaze, from which 
every one willingly retired to a distance. The women now 
left the grounds to bathe themselves and wash their clothes 
in some convenient tank on the way, or at some well-side 
in the city, prior to re-entering their homes. Gathered 
in small groups, the men conversed in subdued tones while 
they watched the roaring fire do its work of destruction. 

A few minutes after the pyre had been kindled the 
Acharaja instructed the chief mourner to walk round it 
six times. Each time he circled about the blazing pile he 
carried a piece of grass or reed in his hand, given to him 
by the officiating priest, and having made a complete 

271 



BRAHMANS, THEISTS, AND MUSLIMS OF INDIA 

circuit, threw it on the fire, as his special contribution in 
the shape of fuel. The first and second time the adopted 
son walked round bareheaded, but after that he was only 
too glad to cover both head and face with a wet cloth to 
protect them from the fierceness of the heat, which would 
have been bad enough at any time, but was intolerable on 
that bright sultry autumn morning. He was a strange and 
weird object that gaunt young man, with sharp features 
and sunken eyes, as he appeared sometimes boldly defined 
against the ruddy flames, at other times in uncertain 
outline, like a phantom dimly visible, through the fire and 
the clouds of white smoke which rose rapidly upwards in 
the quivering air. 

After he had circled round six times, the other male 
relations of the deceased were summoned by the officiating 
priest to take part in the ceremony. They responded to 
the invitation immediately, and, led by the adopted son, 
went round the pyre once only. The attendant attached 
to the crematorium, a ghoul-like creature who had built up 
the pile on which the physician's body was being consumed, 
took the chief mourner by the arm and began pointing out 
to him with his skinny finger something apparently of 
special interest amidst the flickering flames. 

Ungainly indeed was his attitude, as, bending from the 
waist to get his eyes upon a lower level, he tried to make 
his companion see where the deceased's skull was still 
visible in the centre of the mass of red-hot fuel. 

Handing him a pole, the attendant directed the chief 
mourner to break the glowing skull. He accordingly made 
a thrust at it, and the almost calcined bone readily gave 
way under the impact. 

This was a supreme moment, for now, at last, the spirit 
of the deceased was finally released from the trammels of 
his body, which, no doubt, had been reduced to ashes with 
the express object of effecting this ultimate and happy 
liberation. 

Each man present picking up a dry twig or chip of 
wood, of some kind or other, went out of the crematory. 

The wandering soul, freed from its prison-house, but still 
bound by earthly ties of affection, accompanied them. All 

272 



ASHES TO ASHES 

present, not excepting even the liberated spirit, assembled 
together a few feet away from the platform outside the gate. 
Here the Acharaja ^ repeated some more texts, ending with 
these words : " Yatra Agata Tatra Gata " (Whence he came 
thither has he gone). As soon as the final syllables were 
uttered all the men broke their twigs, or chips of wood, 
simultaneously, and rose to their feet with a prolonged 
" Ah ! " 

Such was the conclusion of that morning's ceremony. 
The living departed to attend to the duties of life, but the 
soul of the dead man, homeless and alone, and now for the 
first time fully conscious of the severance of all its earthly 
ties, was left to find its own way to the realm of Yama, 
God of Death, on the way to the regions, happy or otherwise, 
appointed for its sojourn until the time of its next re- 
incarnation. Hindu imagination has created for the wander- 
ing spirit just released from the bondage of the flesh, many 
dire difficulties and troubles, including the passage of an 
abominable flood, the dread Vaitarani Kiver. The Egyptians 
of the old time held somewhat similar ideas. According to 
Buddhistic belief, the disembodied spirit, the poor errant 
solitary soul, has to face the Powers of Darkness arrayed in 
monstrous shapes to terrify it ; and Christianity, too, has 
not been free from notions of terrible beings who, under 
the command of the "Prince of the Power of the Air," 
oppose the upward flight of the liberated soul, as indeed 
St. Anthony, "carried away in spirit," knew from actual 
experience.^ Perhaps the latest reminder we have of this 
belief is in the impotent scorn hurled by the demons at 
the disembodied soul of the Christian, as pictured in " The 
Dream of Gerontius," so familiar to lovers of music. 

The rite of cremation, well known in many countries of 
the ancient world, has a special justification in the case of 
the Hindu because of his belief in the reincarnation of the 
soul in a 7ieiu body, human or other, a belief which excludes 

^ The story of the origin of tlie Brahman caste of the Acharajas, or 
funeral priests, is related in Dr. John Wilson's Indian Caste, vol. ii, 
p. 175. 

^ St. Athanasius cited in The Monastic Life from the Fathers of the Desert 
to Charlemagne, by Thomas W. Allies, pp. 36, 37. 

s 273 



BRAHMANS, THEISTS, AND MUSLIMS OF INDIA 

the idea of the resurrection of the lody as held by Christians ^ 
and Muslims, who ordinarily look forward to the miraculous 
reanimation of the corpse by divine decree at the Day of 
Judgment. From the Hindu point of view, it is evident 
that when the soul quits its mortal tenement, that tenement 
is of no further use or value, and its destruction by the 
purifying element of fire is for him a reasonable and con- 
venient mode of disposing of the dead. This seems to me a 
natural result of the doctrine of the transmigration of souls, 
yet some scholars are known to maintain, rather oddly I 
think, that the embalming of dead animals amongst the 
Egyptians in the old time was due to this very doctrine.^ 

A few days later I went again to the crematorium for a 
further inspection and to clear up a few points. Two or 
three diminutive toy-tents only a few inches high, made of 
white or coloured cloth, had been pitched amidst the grey 
ashes which marked the sites of some previous cremations. 
They looked odd, indeed ridiculous, did these little toy-tents, 
but they were nevertheless touching evidences of human 
affection and sympathy, having been put up by loving 
hands in the fond, if fatuous, hope, of affording a refuge 
from the inclemencies of the weather to d6ar, disembodied 
spirits, believed to be still lingering disconsolately near their 
earthly homes. In connection with these tiny tents I was 
told that they were in each case erected on the fourth day 
after the lighting of the funeral pyre, as on that day the 
nearest relatives of the deceased pay their last visit to the 
crematorium to search amongst the ashes for such fragments 
of bone as may have escaped total incineration, with the 
object not of preserving them (for urn-burial is not a Hindu 
practice) but of committing them to the sanctifying waters 
of the sacred Ganges, or of some other running stream more 
accessible if less renowned.^ 

At Hardwar, I had myself seen under the clear water 

^ For some quaint observations on this subject, vide Sir Thomas Browne, 
Hydriota2')hia, Urne-Buriall, at the end of chapter iii. 

^ Dr. Lortet in Hevue des Deux Ifondes, 15 Mai 1905. 

^ It seems hardly necessary to remark that the idea which directs the 
placing of a lighted lamp (the Diwa-wattee already referred to) in the hand 
of the corpse as soon as life is extinct, is not in harmony with these later 
ceremonies and their underlying sentiments. 

274 



ASHES TO ASHES 

which laves the sacred ghat, white fragments of the bones 
of departed Hindus which had been conveyed thither by 
considerate kinsfolk from probably long distances, and 
dutifully consigned to the Ganges at one of the most holy 
places on its banks.^ 

While I talked with the attendants, my attention was 
directed to a number of small owls staring wonderingly at 
us with queer round eyes, from amidst the leafy recesses 
of the beautiful banyan tree near which I was standing. 
A handful or two of grey ashes, representing the remains 
of a fellow-creature and of the fuel which had been used in 
his cremation, were strewn at my feet, mixed with the 
tawny dust of the soil on which they lay. The human 
body had practically vanished into thin air, and these ashes 
now commingled with the dust of the earth were all the 
visible relics of it. The grey fluffy little birds overhead 
became uneasy and restless, apparently at my too long 
confabulation in their neighbourhood. I could not help 
turning my eyes in their direction, and the sapient looks 
with which the owlets met my gaze suggested the mournful 
reflection that, after all, these staid inhabitants of the place 
probably knew quite as much, or quite as little, about a life 
beyond the veil, as any one who had ever visited or would 
ever set foot in the Lahore crematorium. 

On my homeward way I stopped at the pretty Christian 
cemetery hard by, attracted to its peaceful silence by fond 
if painful memories. As I wandered amongst the quiet 
tombs which testified by their neat appearance and the 
floral tributes which adorned them, that the long-buried 
dead were still affectionately remembered, I felt that the 
trim graveyard with its pretty marble and sandstone 
monuments, slumbering in the hot sunshine, was far more 
conducive to tender and elevating sentiments, far more 
humanising than any crematorium could ever be. And I 
pondered with deep regret, that " God's acre " might some 
day be a thing of the past; for sanitarians, with their 

' Readers wlio desire ampler details of the post-cremation rites connected 
with Hindu exequies in Upper India are referred to Religion and Folk-lore 
of Northern India, by W. W. Crooke, vol. ii. pp. 55-59, and Brief Eevieiv 
of the Casle System, by Mr. J, C. Nesfield, pp. 69, 70. 

275 



BRAHMANS, THEISTS, AND MUSLIMS OF INDIA 

microbes and bacilli, will probably so work upon the 
timidity of a neurotic society that in the interests of 
Mammon and pleasure, Christian burial will gradually be 
replaced by pagan cremation. I appreciate the arguments 
put forward in support of cremation, and the sentiments 
which prompt men like Mr. Herbert Spencer and Mr. W. 
E. H. Lecky to have their remains incinerated, yet I cannot 
help believing that should this practice become general, 
the world would assuredly be the poorer for the change, 
paying a heavy moral price for, at best, a doubtful physical 
advantage.^ Besides, is it a small matter that the practice 
of inhumation has given us those relics of pride and affec- 
tion, the stately tombs of bygone generations, from the 
Pyramids of Egypt and the Mausoleum at Halicarnassus to 
the Taj of Agra and the royal sepulchre at Erogmore, as 
well as the humbler, but perhaps more touching memorials 
of domestic affection scattered through the graveyards and 
churches of Christendom ? 

^ Quarterly Review^ July 1900. 




276 



PART III 
ISLAM IN INDIA 

THE MUHARRAM 
FAQUIRS 



277 



TME. 

M0/1ARRAM 




lTMDTA'ZlAn-PROGE:5t>IOri: 

279 



CHAPTER I 

THE MUHAREAM 

Section I, — The his- 
torical basis of the 
great celebration. 

OUNGEST of the 
great world- 
religions, and 
still possessed 
of much of that 
vigorous vitality 
which ensured the 
wonderful tri- 
umphs of its 
adolescence, Islam, 
from every point 
of view, affords a 
subject well 
worthy of study. 
The Muharram 
celebration, in- 
spired as it is by 
gory tragedies of 
the earliest days 
of Islam, and still, 
after thirteen 
hundred years, 
capable of stirring 
to passionate grief 
the hearts of 



BRAHMANS, THEISTS, AND MUSLIMS OF INDIA 

millions of Muhammadans in many countries, is an annual 
event which, even if little understood or appreciated by the 
European resident in India, cannot have quite escaped his 
perhaps unwilling notice. 

Of Islam itself it may be well to recall to memory that 
though it originated in the early days of the seventh cen- 
tury of the Christian era, it has lost little of the fervour 
and fanaticism which, after ensuring its initial triumphs, 
enabled it to practically displace Christianity in Western 
Asia, to conquer Constantinople, and hold with a masterful 
hand considerable European and African provinces of the 
Eoman Empire, to retain its grip upon Jerusalem against 
the enthusiastic valour of the Crusaders, to inspire at the 
present time the loyal devotion of over two hundred millions 
of the human race, and still to win daily new adherents to 
the faith in both Asia and Africa. 

In the British Empire there are ninety-four millions of 
persons who profess the Muhammadan religion, and of these 
over sixty-two millions belong to India, being four millions 
in excess of the entire Christian population to be found, 
according to the latest census, throughout the dominions 
of H.M. King Edward vii., a striking fact well worth 
pondering in this twentieth century of the Christian era. 
The Indian Muslims are divided very unequally into two 
principal sects, the Sunnis or traditionists, and the Shiahs 
or dissenters, the latter being very much in the minority ; 
and between these two sects the bitterest enmity often 
prevails, leading sometimes to armed antagonism and the 
spilling of much blood. Even now, after over 1200 years 
since the date of the events which occasioned the schism, 
the Sunnis and the Shiahs are only too ready to fly at each 
other's throats. So lately as July 1903 we had a Sunni 
faquir in Tirah on the British Indian frontier getting up 
a crusade against the Shiahs in the border-land, with the 
result that some sharp fighting took place in the Mani 
Khel country, with not inconsiderable casualties amongst 
the fanatical tribesmen on either side. 

Besides the Sunnis and Shiahs there are also to be found 
in the ranks of Indian Muslims the reforming Wahdbis, the 
mystics known as Sufis, and many other sectarians whom 

280 



THE MUHARRAM 

I need not name here. Besides these, there are a few 
fanatics known as Ghazis, burning with rehgious zeal against 
all infidels, amongst whom European Christians probably 
hold the foremost place. 

Of the Muhammadans of India very few are of the 
stock of the Muslim conquerors of the country, and still 
fewer can lay claim to purity of descent. Nevertheless, in 
many families linger traditions and written evidences of 
dominion and power enjoyed only a few generations back. 
However, the vast majority of the Muhammadans of British 
India are converted Hindus or the descendants of such con- 
verts, by far the greatest number, no less than 25,265,342, 
being Bengalis, a most important fact, which is quite lost 
sight of by most newspaper and magazine writers, who, 
when speculating about the future of India, in the event of 
its abandonment hy the British, assert quite confidently that 
the dominion of the countries south of the Himalayas would 
inevitably fall into the hands of the Indian Muhammadans. 
Such predictions are ill-advised; but as they are often 
made, I would suggest to the political seers just referred 
to, a careful study of the geographical distribution of the 
Indian Muhammadans, and the nationalities to ruhich they 
belong, as a preliminary to these vaticinations. 

Stated broadly, the religious practice of Indian Muham- 
madans consists largely in pilgrimages to the tombs of 
saints. It is true that the regular call (azan) to prayers 
rises five times each day from the proud minarets of the 
mosques in every city of the land, but, as in Christian 
Europe, only a small minority observe strictly the obliga- 
tions of their faith. The great majority are heedless of the 
azans and the services in the Masjid, neglect all private 
devotions, and do not go beyond an attendance at the 
mosque twice a year on the occasions of the two principal 
Islamic festivals, Idu'1-Azha ^ and the Idu'l-Fitr.^ 

The religious observances of Indian Muslims have little 

^ Idu'l-Azha or Id'-i-Zuha, " the feast of sacrifice," is a part of the rites 
of the annual pilgrimage to Mecca, and it is also observed throughout the 
Muhammadan world as a gi-eat festival. 

^ Idu'l-Fitr, "the festival of the breaking of the fast," which follows 
the great fast of the Ramazan, is especially one of almsgiving. 

281 



BRAHMANS, THEISTS, AND MUSLIMS OF INDIA 

of the noise and bustle which are associated with so many 
of the Hindu religious festivals. But once every year in 
the month of Muharram, which is the first month of the 
Muslim year, the Muhammadans of the Shiah sect appear 
in a new and impetuously demonstrative aspect, filling the 
streets of the principal Indian cities with a certain regulated 
uproar, of which the keynote is fanatical, yet well-disciplined 
lamentation. At such seasons noisy drums disturb the air 
with their throbbing dissonance, and cries not of joy but of 
sorrow are heard above the beating of the drums. After 
nightfall torches flash in the thoroughfares, and expert 
performers do honour to the occasion by weaving flame- 
figures in the air with the aid of long poles having a 
lighted torch fixed at each extremity. This annual orgie 
of mingled sorrow, bustle, and unhealthy emotionalism is 
the public and therefore prominent feature of the imposing 
ceremonial known as " the Muharram." 

I have witnessed the Muharram in different parts of 
Northern India and also in the Madras Presidency, and 
have noticed that the celebration has in each place its local 
peculiarities. There are, however, certain features fairly 
common to all. 

The Muharram is held by the Shiah sect, and extends 
over ten consecutive days. The more orthodox sect of the 
Sunnis refrain from participation in these doings; but 
it happens that on the 10th of the Muharram falls the 
Ashurad, the day on which, according to the traditions, God 
created our first parents, Adam and Eve, and this the 
Sunnis piously observe. However, in India, at any rate, many 
more Muslims participate in the Muharram than would care 
to be ranged under the exclusive banner of the Shiah sect. 

Of the ten days of the Muharram celebrations, nine are 
devoted to mdtam or lamentation on account of the assas- 
sination of Ali, the Prophet's son-in-law, in the mosque at 
Kufa, of the untimely death of Hasan, the Prophet's grand- 
son, who was poisoned by his wife Jadah, and more especi- 
ally of the tragic fate of Imam^ Husain, who was killed 
at Karbala fighting desperately under circumstances both 
touching and dramatic. 

^ Imam means Sovereign-Pontiff. 
282 



THE MUHARRAM 

For the comprehension of the purpose and origin of the 
celebration of the Muharram, it is desirable to take note 
of certain events which occurred subsequent to the death 
of the Prophet-founder of Islam. As is usual in such cases, 
there are certain discrepancies in the narratives and tradi- 
tions which have come down to us ; but the historicity of 
the more important features of the case may be depended 
upon and freely accepted. 

The immediate successors of the Prophet Muhammad, 
as heads of both Church and State were : 

1. Ahuhakr (a.d. 632-634), the father of Ayishah, 

Muhammad's favourite wife.^ 

2. Umar (Omar) (a.d. 634-644), the father of Hafsah, 

Muhammad's third wife. He was assassinated by 
a Persian slave. 

3. Usmdn (Othman) (a.d. 644-656), the secretary of 

Muhammad and also his son-in-law, having married 
two of the Prophet's daughters, Euqaiyah and 
Umman Kulsum. He was murdered by the son 
of Abubakr and other conspirators. 

4. AH (a.d. 656-660), son-in-law and cousin of 

Muhammad, who was elected to the office in spite 
of the opposition of Ayishah, his implacable enemy. 
He was murdered in the mosque of Kufa by an 
assassin named Abd-ur-rahman. 

5. Al-Hasan (a.d. 660), son of Ali and grandson of 

the Prophet. Eeigned for about six months and 
then abdicated in favour of Muawiyah. He was 
subsequently (a.d. 668) poisoned by his wife Jadah 
at the instigation of Yazid, Muawiyah's son, who 
promised to marry her. 

6. Muaiviyah (a.d. 660-679) was the son of one of the 

leading companions of the Prophet. He made the 
Headship of Islam hereditary, and is regarded with 
great hatred by the Shiahs, 

7. Yazid (a.d. 679-683), son of Muawiyah. It was in 

conflict with Yazid that al-Hasan was killed at the 
battle of Karbala. 

^ Ayisliali is generally known as the Virgin and Abubakr as * ' the 
Father of the Virgin." 

283 



BRAHMANS, THEISTS, AND MUSLIMS OF INDIA 

Now the Shiahs hold that the three Khalifahs who 
preceded Ali were mere usurpers, and that in reality Ali 
was the first Khalifah, al-Hasan the second, and al-Husain 
the third. They maintain that the Khalifate was a divine 
institution, that Ali was duly appointed by Muhammad to 
be his successor, and some Shiahs, going further than this, 
affirm that : " The Prophet declared that the Most High had 
created him and Ali and Fatimah, and Hasan and Husain 
before the creation of Adam, and when as yet there was 
neither heaven nor earth, nor darkness nor light, nor sun 
nor moon, nor paradise nor hell." ^ 

In addition to the three above-named Khalifahs the 
Shiahs recognise only nine others, the last of these being 
Muhammad, son of al-Hasan al-Askari, known as the Imam 
al-Mahdi, who mysteriously disappeared long centuries ago, 
but nevertheless still lives and will reappear as the Mahdi 
or Director, before the end of the world, in accordance with 
the Prophet's prediction. And here I may remark, paren- 
thetically, that this looking for some one yet to come in 
order to crown, as it were, the unfinished work of the 
prophets of the foretime, is a common feature of many, 
perhaps of all, the great existing religions, and is, doubtless, 
a pathetic admission of disappointment at the disparity 
between the alluring promises made by the prophets and 
the mean historical realities ; coupled with a fond hope 
that things will yet be made right, and the long-suffering 
faithful receive their expected reward in full measure. 

Of the nations who profess Islam, the Persians, here- 
ditary opponents of the Arabs, are the most devoted to the 
Shiah beliefs and traditions. Amongst the Indian Mussul- 
mans, it is said, that only about five or six millions belong 
to the Shiah sect. 

The bloody events connected with the violent deaths of 
their first three KJialifahs, Ali, Hasan, and Husain, are 
annually recalled to mind by the Shiahs, in all Muhammadan 
countries where they happen to be in sufficient numbers to 
claim the licence of indulging their grief in public, the 
highest place in their sympathy being allotted to Husain. 

^ The author of Haydtu'l-Qutliib, quoted by Mr. Hughes in his Dictionary 
of Islam, Art. "Shiah." 

284 



THE MUHARRAM 

It seems that after Yazid had assumed the Khalifate, 
secret and perhaps perfidious overtures were made to Husain 
by certain citizens of the city of Kufa, urging him to put 
himself at the head of the fortunes of Islam, and promising 
him armed support. 

Only sixty-one years had elapsed since the Hijrah or 
historic flight of Muhammad from Mecca, and already — such 
was the energy and enthusiasm of the early followers of the 
Prophet — the dominion of Islam extended over Arabia, 
Persia, Syria, and Egypt ; so that the temporal power 
attached to the Khalifate was sufficient to excite the 
ambition even of a saint. 

Against the prudent advice and affectionate entreaties 
of his relatives, Husain accepted the tempting invitation, 
and set out from Medina on his journey with a handful of 
attendants and the women and children of his family. 
But the conspiracy came to the knowledge of Yazid, and 
he forthwith took decisive measures to make rivalry on the 
]3art of al-Husain for ever impossible. 

On reaching the boundaries of Babylonia, Husain was 
met, on the first day of the month of Muharram, by a party 
of horsemen under the command of an officer named Al Hur, 
who had been sent to seize and lead him captive into the 
presence of Ubaidullah, the Governor of Busra. Al Hur, 
with pious respect for the grandson of the Prophet, treated 
Husain with the greatest consideration, giving him the 
option of any road to Kufa which he might care to select, 
except one leading back to Mecca. 

Husain chose his route and journeying by night, became 
sleepy in the saddle and nodded occasionally. This physical 
weakness he accepted, with Oriental fatalism, as prophetic 
of evil, remarking : " Men travel by night and the destinies 
travel toward them ; this I know to be a message of death." 

On the third day after Husain's meeting with Hur, 
another and larger body of the enemy, some 4000 strong, 
under the command of Umr Ibn Sa'd, came up with him 
and demanded an explanation as to what had brought him 
there. The leader would fain have dealt generously with 
the son of Fatima, but by command of Ubaidullah, the 
Governor of Busra, proceeded without delay to cut off 

285 



BRAHMANS, THEISTS, AND MUSLIMS OF INDIA 

Husain and his little band from all access to the Euphrates, 
a strategical movement which placed the Prophet's grand- 
son entirely at the mercy of his enemies. 

Eealising too late the futility of his adventure, Husain 
asked permission to return to Mecca, and Ibn Sa'd, influenced 
by Hur, communicated with the Governor of Busra on the 
point; but the latter peremptorily insisted upon Husain's 
unconditional surrender. 

Six days, from the fourth to the ninth of Muharram, had 
been passed in these negotiations, while Husain's devoted 
little band of only seventy-two men and the comparatively 
considerable forces of the enemy lay encamped over against 
each other on an open plain named Karbala, by the banks 
of the historic Euphrates. 

Suspecting Umar's loyalty, UbaiduUah had despatched 
to his camp a fanatical partisan of Yazid's family named 
Shamir, with peremptory orders to the commander of the 
forces to demand Husain's immediate and unconditional 
surrender, and in the event of a rejection of these terms to 
literally trample him and his followers under foot. Further, 
Shamir came secretly authorised to strike off Umar's head, 
and himself take command of the troops, should Umar 
exhibit any hesitation about dealing summarily with the 
Prophet's grandson, the dangerous claimant to the Headship 
of Islam. 

On the 9th day of Muharram, Umar rode into Husain's 
camp and personally communicated to him the final decision 
of the Governor of Busra. 

Husain pleaded for time till the next morning to con- 
sider his answer, and this request was apparently granted. 

With noble generosity Husain urged his companions to 
return to their homes, as he alone was wanted at Kufa, but 
they one and all refused to desert him in his hour of need, 
remarking, "God forbid that we should ever see the day 
wherein we survive you ! " 

The steadfast band of heroes made ready to die like 
men ; willing to exchange the troubles of this life for the 
peace of Paradise and the embraces of the dark-eyed Houris. 
During the night they protected their rear with a deep 
trench filled with lighted faggots, and awaited an attack at 

286 



THE MUHARRAM 

daybreak. In expectation of immediate battle, their leader, 
who had fought with credit against the Christians during 
the long but fruitless siege of Constantinople (a.d. 668-675), 
took up his position on horseback with the Koran before 
him, exclaiming as he faced his enemies : " God, Thou 
art my confidence in every trouble and my hope in every 
adversity." 

At this critical moment in al-Husain's fortunes occurred 
one of those rare incidents which, whether inspired by pure 
magnanimity, or by the hope of an eternal reward, un- 
doubtedly ennoble humanity, and therefore should not be 
forgotten. It was this. A small party of thirty horsemen 
detached itself from the main body of the enemy and 
rapidly approached Husain's entrenched position. " The 
van of the attacking force ! " thought Husain and his friends. 
No, it was Al Hur with a few followers, who had come over 
to the weaker side, resolved, with devoted courage to share 
inevitable death with the grandson of the Prophet and his 
faithful little band. As he left the army of Umar to cast 
in his lot with Husain, Hur (known to posterity as Hur-i- 
shahid, Hur the Martyr), fired with lofty disdain, turned 
round and shouted back to his former companions, " Alas ! 
for you ! " But there was no further defection from the 
enemy's forces. No other help for Husain was forth- 
coming. 

Although naturally reluctant to destroy the son of 
Fatima, Ibn Sa'd's forces had to obey the orders of their 
commander. The fight began by the implacable and 
truculent Shamir shooting an arrow towards Husain's 
entrenchment. Thenceforward the conflict between the 
two very unequal forces was carried on in a desultory 
manner, with at least one truce for the performance of the 
prescribed midday prayers. 

According to the Shiah traditions, at the commencement 
of the battle Ali Akbar, Husain's eldest son, animated by a 
burning zeal for vengeance and the martyr's crown, made 
no less than ten successful onslaughts on the enemy, 
killing at each charge at least two or three of his opponents ; 
but in his eleventh attack, exhausted with fatigue and 
thirst, he was surrounded by his foes and cut to pieces. In 

287 



BRAHMANS, THEISTS, AND MUSLIMS OF INDIA 

Husain's camp, amongst the members of his own family, 
there was the youthful Kasim, his brother Hasan's son. 
A solemn promise had been made to this youth's father 
that he should wed Husain's daughter, consequently, even 
with inevitable destruction before him, the Imam felt it his 
duty to unite them in wedlock, though the wailings for 
gallant Ali Akbar's untimely end were still in their ears. 
After the hasty wedding Kasim, a mere child, henceforth 
always remembered as " the bridegroom," went forth to 
combat the foes of his family, and fell an easy victim in the 
unequal strife.^ Now Husain, attended by his brother, the 
standard-bearer Abbas, both having donned their cerements, 
sallied forth and made a furious attack on the troops of Ibn 
Sa'd, with the result that Abbas, fighting bravely for the 
martyr's reward, was mortally wounded. 

In this desultory fashion, due, no doubt, to the feelings 
of respect entertained by the rank and file of the enemy's 
forces for the beloved grandson of their Prophet, the battle 
dragged on until Husain received a wound on the head. 
Faint from loss of blood, he dismounted and sat beside his 
tent with his little son Ali Ashgar or Abdallah in his lap. 
In his father's fond embrace the child was struck and killed 
by a random arrow.^ 

It was a bitter moment indeed, but al-Husain, placing 
his dead child upon the ground, exclaimed with pious 
resignation : " We come from God and we return to Him. 
God, give me strength to bear these misfortunes." 

Overcome with thirst, Husain now hurried towards the 
river, and as he drank of its refreshing stream, a flying 
arrow pierced his mouth. Eaising both his bloodstained 
hands he lifted his troubled eyes to heaven and in sight of 
the opposing forces poured out his soul in prayer. 

At last, encouraged and goaded on by the bloodthirsty 
Shimar, the troops closed upon Husain, who, facing the 
terrible odds against him, defended himself with undaunted 
bravery. In the heat of raging battle Husain's sister 

^ According to other accounts, Kasim was killed in his nncle's arms. 
Sir William Muir, The Galii^Tiatc : Its Rise, Decline, and Fall, p. 326. 

^ Sir William Muir includes Ali Ashgar amongst the survivors of 
Karbala. The Caliphate, p. 327. 



THE MUHARRAM 

Zainab threw herself recklessly amongst the excited 
combatants, pleading for the life of her brother : but her love 
availed not. Bleeding from many wounds, Husain was at 
length despatched by a spear-thrust through his body, and 
as he fell, Shimar rode a troop of horsemen over his 
prostrate corpse again and again, until the handsome form 
of the Prophet's grandson was mangled out of recognition 
under the hoofs of the horses. With cruel forethought, 
however, Husain's head was preserved to be carried aloft in 
triumph to Kufa, hanging from the point of a spear. Not a 
man of Husain's devoted band escaped with his life. The 
women and children of his household were captured and 
taken to Ubaidullah's palace at Kufa, having, according 
to Shiah traditions, been treated with the greatest 
indignity. 

Husain's death occurred on the 9th October a.d. 680, 

" A thrill of horror," says Sir William Muir, " ran 
through the crowd when the gory head of the Prophet's 
grandson was cast at Ubeidallah's feet. Hard hearts 
were melted. As the Governor turned the head roughly 
over with his staff (though we must be slow to accept 
the tales of heartless insult multiplied by Shiya hate), 
an aged voice was heard to cry : ' Gently ! It is the 
Prophet's grandson. By the Lord ! I have seen those 
very lips kissed by the blessed mouth of Mahomet.' " ^ 

There cannot be any doubt that the sufferings of Husain 
on the field of Karbala, where so many of his loved ones 
died fighting for him, and where he and his entire family 
with the women and tender babes endured the cruel 
agonies of thirst — cut off by their bitter enemies from the 
waters of the Euphrates — were indeed terrible and affecting 
in the extreme, and truly, as Gibbon writing of this event 
says, in his own stately way : " In a distant age and climate 
the tragic scene of the death of Husain will awaken the 
sympathy of the coldest reader." 

1 Sir William Muir, The Caliphate, p. 327. 



289 



THE MUKAKRAM— continued 

Section II. — The Passion Play of Hasan and Husain. 

_^ *HE ceremonies of the Muharram celebrations 

I fall into two classes : 

I The indoor performance, if such it can 

B be called, of a long miracle play dealing in 

JIL minute detail with a succession of painful 

^ events and tragedies which culminated at 

Karbala ; and of public processions and open-air demon- 
strations. We may deal with these separately, taking the 
miracle play first. 

Wealthy Shiah families set apart a special building, 
known as the Imamhara for the annual performance of the 
play, and this sometimes serves also as a mausoleum for 
the proprietor and privileged members of the family. 

Of the Imambaras I have visited, the one at Hugli in 
Bengal and the Husainabad at Lucknow are the largest. In 
each the principal feature is a spacious hall, hung with 
crystal chandeliers and decorated with mirrors and other 
glittering ornaments. It is usual in Imambaras to have 
on the side towards Mecca certain tabuts or tazias which 
are fanciful representations of the tombs of the martyrs. 
These are often handsome and costly structures on which 
the artistic skill of the East has been freely lavished. At 
night during the annual celebrations the hall or theatre 
is brilliantly lighted, and so is the tahut itself, the whole 
presenting a scene of rare and peculiar beauty. 

The great Imamhara at Lucknow, erected in a.d. 1784 
by the Nawab Asaf-ul-Daulah, was not many years ago, and 
perhaps is even now, used by the British Government as an 
arsenal. It is a magnificent structure, with a hall 167 feet 
by 52 feet and 63 feet high. 

290 



THE MUHARRAM 

The Passion Play. — Of the Passion Play as performed 
in Persia, the stronghold of Shiahism, we have an English 
rendering by Sir Lewis Pelly, which, revised and supplied 
with explanatory notes by Mr. A. N. Wollaston, makes a 
couple of substantial volumes, to which I am indebted for 
the quaint and significant details embodied in this section. 

The play, as presented to us in Sir Lewis Pelly 's work, 
has many peculiarities well worthy of attention. 

In the first place, the action ranges over a period of 
time past and future extending from the days of Joseph 
and his brethren to the final resurrection of the dead. 
Anachronisms the most outrageous do not daunt the 
dramatist; exaggeration and hyperbole reign rampant. 
Beings of all orders come forward and speak, from the 
Almighty Himself with His angels and jinns,^ down to men 
and women of all grades and characters. Disembodied 
spirits, as of Muhammad, Fatinia, and Ali, appear and take 
a lively practical interest in the fate of their descendants, 
while even a talking lion is gravely introduced to enhance 
the honour and glory of Husain. Headless trunks speak 
rationally from the throat, and heads severed from their 
bodies hold long conversations. (Vol. ii. pp. 60, 61.) 

Other wonders, too, find a place in the play, as when the 
whole of Ibn Sa'd's army fly terror-stricken before the great 
Imam Husain (ii. 44), and when Husain himself is spirited 
away from the battlefield of Karbala to distant India 
merely to rescue Sultan Ghiyas from the jaws of a lion. 
(Vol. ii. pp. 54-65.) 

In the crisis of his difficulties, the martyr is, in the 
manner so familiar to the East, exposed to a great temptation. 
The angel Eutrus comes with his legions to him and offers 
to utterly destroy his enemies ; but Husain nobly replies 
that after the death of his beloved sons and kinsmen the 
possession of the throne of the entire world would yield 
him no pleasure, and that it were better to die than to 
outlive his children. (Vol. ii. pp. 49-52.) 

Quite naturally, of course, some sensational conversions 
of Christians to the Muhammadan faith are brought into the 
play. (Scenes xxxl, xxxv., and xxxvi.) 

^ Genii, botli good and evil, 
291 



BRAHMANS, THEISTS, AND MUSLIMS OF INDIA 

A curious feature of the drama we are considering is the 
frequent protest made by the sufferers against the tyranny, 
injustice, and malignity of " the Heavens," or of " the 
Spheres." It may sound strange, this petulant accusation of 
the unfair and unfriendly Heavens ; but it is intelligible 
enough. The endurance of unmerited calamities with 
absolute patience being an impossibility, the human soul in 
trouble must cry aloud, even if it be in impotent complaint. 
But against whom are its accusations to be directed ? To lift 
one's voice in fretful murmuring against God, the orclainer 
of all things, would be too impious, too temerarious, and so 
the outraged feelings of the helpless are relieved by plaintive 
impeachments of an impersonal cruel Fate, or an equally 
malicious Heaven, or the silent treacherous Stars in their 
courses. 

Writing for Westerns it seems to me that the prominence 
given throughout the play to the women of Husain's family, 
and the deep respect and unstinted affection with which 
they are, at all times, addressed or alluded to, is a feature 
of the play worth noting, in face of the unnecessary pity 
which European and American women usually express for 
the inmates of the harem. 

Although the play is, of course, not history, yet the 
larger portion of it is devoted to a presentment of the main 
historical events which precede and follow the awful carnage 
with which the name of Karbala will for ever be associated. 

After presenting in detail Shimar's bloody triumph 
over Husain, the play unfolds, to the accompaniment of 
heart-rending lamentations, the evil fortunes of the ill- 
starred women and children of his family ; not, however, 
omitting to include in the plot, no doubt as a compliment 
to the native home of Shiahism, the happy escape of 
Shahrbanu, the wife of the murdered Husain, and sister of 
the Prince of Persia, and the later release of her daughter 
Fatima, " the bride," by the commander of the Syrian army, 
through the intervention of the same Persian prince. 

Judged by the canons of Western dramaturgy, the play 
is really not dramatic or realistic. It is rather narrative 
in form, the different characters not so much acting as 
describing what they themselves had witnessed, performed, 

292 



THE MUHARRAM 

and experienced, and more particularly what they felt. 
With curious incongruity persons present in widely sepa- 
rated places are frequently made to speak one immediately 
after the other as if they were in the same spot. 

The motive of the play is to work the feelings of the 
audience up to the highest pitch of sympathy with the 
martyrs of Karbala, especially Husain, the central figure of 
that memorable tragedy. Also to make it clear that the 
great martyrdom was purely voluntary and fot the salvation 
of the faithful in the terrible day of Judgment.^ 

The first object is attained by the way in which the 
sufferings of the different martyrs are dwelt upon over and 
over again throughout the play, with a morbid iteration of all 
the harrowing details of the gory tragedy, followed by the 
brutal treatment to which the helpless women and children 
were subsequently exposed. Even before the event, prophetic 
vision conjures up all the sad scenes of suffering which the 
family of the Prophet would have to go through. Indeed, the 
way in which every one seems aware of the events which 
are about to come to pass, is surprising, and borders on the 
ridiculous. Thirst and its horrors being only too well known 
to the dwellers in the arid countries of Asia, the bitter cry 
for water haunts and heightens the tragedy of Karbala. 

To keep before the minds of the audience the voluntary 
character of Husain's martyrdom it is insisted more than 
once that, possessed as he was of superhuman power, he 
could, if he had so desired, have easily produced water 
for his thirsty family and followers, or routed his armed 
assailants on that fatal 10th day of Muharram. 

For attestation of the efficacy and the triumphant justi- 
fication of the great sacrifice, we have the concluding scene 
of the Final Eesurrection of the Dead, when the right of 
Husain, by virtue of his sufferings, to be the intercessor for 
the faithful is conceded by Allah himself. 

To Muhammad the Angel Gabriel, the celestial messenger, 
says : 

"Peace be unto thee, Muhammad, the elect, God 
hath sent thee a message, saying, ' None has suffered the 

^ The sacrifice (albeit predestined, vol. ii. p. 86) of Husain for the benefit 
of his people is explained at vol. i. pp. 210, 211. 

293 



BRAHMANS, THEISTS, AND MUSLIMS OF INDIA 

pain and afflictions which Husain has undergone. None 
has, like him, been obedient to my service. As he has 
taken no steps save in sincerity in all that he has done, 
thou must put the Key of Paradise in his hand. The privi- 
lege of making intercession for sinners is exclusively his. 
Husain is, by My peculiar grace, the mediator for all.' " 

In communicating this divine message to his grandson, 
Muhammad is made to say : 

" Good tidings, Husain ! Act thou according to 
thy will. Behold the fulfilment of God's promise. Per- 
mission has proceeded from the Judge, the gracious 
Creator, that I should give to thy hand this Key of 
intercession. Go thou and deliver from the flames every 
one who has in his lifetime shed but a single tear for 
thee, every one who has in any way helped thee, every one 
who has performed a pilgrimage to thy shrine, or mourned 
for thee, and every one who has written tragic verses 
for thee. Bear each and all with thee to Paradise." ^ 

Thus it appears that the Persian Miracle Play of Hasan 
and Husain does more than merely describe the details of 
murders, slaughters, and wanton cruelties; it gives the 
doctrinal justification for the same in the Shiah scheme of 
salvation. Husain indeed expatiates upon the delight with 
which he had " for a great space of time " looked forward to 
the glorious martyrdom for the sake of the sinners amongst 
his people. He is even urged by a voice from the sepulchre 
of the Prophet Muhammed to end his miseries by getting 
soon to Karbala, and receives the advice with joy. (Vol. i. 
p. 212.) It would appear, then, that no futile mission, dictated 
by personal ambition to obtain the Khalifate, guided Husain's 
steps from Medina towards Kufa. Far from that, the details 
of the whole grim scene of thirst and slaughter to occur on 
the banks of the Euphrates were fully known to Imam 
Husain, and he went forward with complete pre-knowledge 
and delight to " drink the honey of martyrdom." Such, at 
any rate according to the Miracle Play, are the beliefs of 
the Shiahs, and though they might not be wholly endorsed 
by all members of the sect, yet it is evident that they must 
be familiar and acceptable to the Shiah public. 

^ The Miracle Play of Hasan and HxLsain, by Sir Lewis Pelly, vol. ii. 
pp. 346, 347. 

294 



THE MUHARRAM 

It was apparently only for his own followers that the 
martyred Husain became a ransom, not for all Muhamma- 
dans,i and certainly for no individual outside the pale of 
Islam. At first sight this redemption appears narrow in 
spirit and restricted in application, but that is nothing new 
or peculiar. According to the accepted doctrines of the 
Christian Church the redemption purchased by the blood 
of Jesus, is, after all, only available for His own professed 
followers ; its benefits do not extend to any others, whether 
they be virtuous or the reverse. 

Keligion, it is needless to insist, is not based on sober 
historical events, though such events, transformed and 
transfigured in the crucible of the believer's imagination, 
often serve to give a sort of actuality to the uncertain 
foundations upon which the composite superstructure of 
dogma and ritual has been reared by successive generations 
of subtle theologians and ambitious priests. Europe, in its 
long history, has witnessed with appreciation scores of 
Passion and Miracle Plays and Ecclesiastical Shows, both 
edifying and unedifying ; based on apocryphal gospels, and 
dealing with the sacred mysteries of the Christian religion, 
such as the Miraculous Birth, the Crucifixion, and the 
Descent into Hell,^ but it is not too much to say that the 
Passion Play of Hasan and Husain performed, or more 
properly declaimed, during the Muharram excites the fervid 
emotions of the hearers in a way no other miracle play, not 
even the decennial performance at Ober-Ammergau has ever 
done, eliciting touching demonstrations of unaffected, if 
hysterical, grief from large audiences. I have myself seen 
in an Imambara in Bengal a crowd of women energetically 
beating their almost bare bosoms and tossing their loose 
tresses forwards and backwards as they cried with pathetic 
emotion and with one voice, " Ya, Husain ! Ya, Husain ! " 
while the audience, melted to tears, sobbed aloud. 

' According to Muslim belief, all Muhammadans will eventually be 
admitted to Paradise. The Shiah belief set forth above means a hastening 
of this blissful reception into heaven of believers in Imam Husain through 
the Saint's intercession. 

* William Hone, Ancient Mysteries described, 1823. 



295 



THE MUHAKRAM 

— continued 




Section III. — Open-air ceremonies. 



AVING- explained the historical 
basis of the Muharram, the 
object kept in view in its 
celebration, and the character- 
istics of the Passion Play asso- 
ciated with it, I pass on to 
the more obtrusive and there- 
fore better known open - air 
ceremonies of the great annual 
demonstration in honour of 
Imam Husain's martyrdom. 

Shortly before the new 
moon of the Muharram the 
Shiahs enclose a space which they call the tabid khana, and 
in this the tabut, a portable structure representing the tomb 
of Husain or one of his martyred followers, is constructed. 
As soon as the new moon becomes visible, a spade is stuck 
into the ground before the enclosure, and here, later on, a 
pit is dug in which a fire is kept burning during the ten 
days of the Muharram celebrations, apparently in memory 
of the trench which had been dug for the protection of 
Husain and his followers at Karbala, and filled, as the reader 
will remember, with lighted faggots the evening previous to 
the final battle. 

The ten days of the Muharram are, of course, days of 
lamentation, yet on the seventh day there is a procession to 
commemorate the marriage of Kasim and Fatima. On the 
eighth day a number of lances, each surmounted by an open 
hand, draped with green cloth — the standards in fact of 

296 



THE MUHARRAM 

Husain — are paraded about the streets. On the ninth day 
the tdbuts are brought out and carried, with much drumming 
and shouting, to some appointed centre, preferably one which 
is associated with the name of a well-known local Muslim 
saint, while the concluding day witnesses the interment of 
these tabuts at the local Karbala. 

The following are brief accounts of these different phases 
of the Muharram celebrations as I have witnessed them. 



1. The Mareiage Procession on the Seventh Day. 

Wending its way througli the streets of a city in 
Northern India came the procession. At the hjcad of it was 
a band of men beating their chests with their ^ands, or, in 
one or two cases, with short iron chains, and sh/6^uting, " Ya, 
Husain ! Ya, Husain ! " the whole party acting under the 
direction of a sort of manager or conductor. Then followed 
two led horses adorned with rich trappings and flowers. 
Both animals freely perfumed with rose-water till dripping 
wet, were doubtless representatives of the horses which 
centuries ago had the honour of carrying ill-starred Kasira 
and his luckless bride. Behind the horses were drummers 
beating their drums in a frantic way, meant, I presume, to 
be expressive of happy exultation. The rest of the pro- 
cession, curving about like a mighty serpent through the 
narrow lanes of the city for at least a mile, was made up of 
camels bearing wedding presents, horses and elephants mov- 
ing in single file, their riders carrying black or green banners 
in their hands. In its way the show was imposing, and as 
for spectators there was no lack of them, the streets being 
so crowded that pedestrians could hardly make headway. 
Eager onlookers crowded the windows, balconies, and roofs 
of the houses along the route. Here and there some poor 
attempts at decoration might be seen. A verandah or shop 
would perhaps be gay with hanging lamps and suspended 
spheres of variously coloured glass, while framed texts from 
the Koran were also displayed for the edification of the few 
who could read Arabic. At several places on the way 
raised booths were in evidence, adorned with leaves and 
plantain trees. At these places water sweetened with sugar 

297 



BRAHMANS, THEISTS, AND MUSLIMS OF INDIA 

was freely distributed, though the manner of serving it out 
to the thirsty souls who swarmed around was certainly open 
to improvement. At one spot I noticed that a woman had 
erected a booth of her own, where she presided in person, 
distributing the sherbet with her own fair hands. She was, 
I ascertained, a woman of the town, and had vowed to 
abstain for the entire ten days of the Muharram from plying 
her usual trade ! Such is the power of religion ! 

Just outside the city, near the pleasant bank of a flowing 
canal, four men were chanting the memorable story of the 
great martyrdom to an attentive audience, who rewarded 
them with tokens of their appreciation in the shape of 
copper coins. I counted just twenty-four pice lying on the 
sheet that had been spread on the ground to receive these 
contributions. Two men stood at one end of the sheet 
and two at the other end, singing alternately in a very 
pleasing style, under the spreading branches of a large 
fig tree. 

On the whole, the wedding procession of the unfortunate 
Kasim and Fatima was impressive enough, but necessarily 
bore not the slightest resemblance to the hurried nuptials 
of those young people on the fatal day of Karbala thirteen 
centuries ago ; if, indeed, such nuptials ever did take place, 
seeing that Kasim was at the time, according to Sir William 
Muir, only ten years of age. 

2. Tabuts ok Tazias. 

For the maintenance of order in the streets, the police, 
having ascertained the localities where the several tazias of 
the year have been built, prescribe the precise route which 
each one must follow in order to reach the appointed meet- 
ing-place. On these occasions the resources of the guardians 
of the public peace are, in the large cities, often taxed to 
the utmost, for the spirit of fanaticism is in the air, and the 
hostility of the rival sects of the Sunnis and Shiahs, in- 
flamed to the highest degree, often leads to serious trouble. 
Muslims and Hindus also occasionally come into collision at 
Muharram time ; and even between the different bands of 
Shiahs affrays sometimes take place owing to the eagerness 

298 



THE MUHARRAM 

of each party to be early at the meeting-place, as there is 
merit to be gained from precedence in this respect. I have 
myself witnessed much disorder in Calcutta during the 
Muharram. 

Leaving generalities, however, I pass on to the details 
connected with a particular gathering of tabuts in Lahore 
at which I was present. 

A few shops were lighted up as I walked down the 
street, at the end of which all the tazias were to be arranged. 
Near this appointed meeting-place a temporary bazaar had 
come into existence. One enterprising fellow had erected a 
canopy over his collection of tempting wares and curious 
toys, and had suspended from a bamboo frame a monster 
80-candle-power German kerosine lamp to illuminate the 
little show. 

At short intervals along both sides of the street itinerant 
vendors of sweets, each man provided with a flaring oil- 
lamp, were squatting near their baskets or flat trays, crying 
their wares in loud strident tones, and the passers-by were 
buying the pretty coloured sweet-stuffs which, dyed pink 
with cochineal, were no doubt very palatable to the Oriental 
taste. 

One by one the tazias or tabuts, illuminated by flaring 
torches, accompanied by deafening tom-toms, and attended 
by their own proprietors and supporters, arrived from the 
different quarters of the town, escorted by constables, and 
were arranged under police supervision on the sides of the 
street. This marshalling of the tazias is a moment of 
intense feeling and keen rivalry. Whose tazia is the best, 
the biggest, the most elaborate, the most costly ? these are 
the questions that occupy the minds of all the participators 
in the show, and each year the Muharram brings its 
triumphs and its disappointments to some or other of the 
tazia builders and their friends. 

Amongst the specimens I saw there were many of con- 
siderable size, others quite diminutive ; but all bright and 
glittering with tinsel, mica, and coloured paper ; some were 
quaint, some pretty, and some decidedly grotesque. The 
underlying idea being that the tazias should, in one way or 
another, represent the tomb of Imam Husain, or of the other 

299 



BRAHMANS, THEISTS, AND MUSLIMS OF INDIA 

martyrs of Karbala, the designs were of course various ; but 
an inspection of them made it clear that the designers had 
allowed their imaginations to run riot in a truly Indian 
fashion. One of these tazias might be merely a tower of four 
or five storeys built on a light bamboo framework. Another 
more elaborate and bizarre in form would have the appear- 
ance of a strange composite being, with a woman's face and 
the body of a peacock, bearing a house on its back. Some 
tazias were supported upon winged horses with long ostrich- 
like necks, surmounted with human faces of feminine type. 
One was borne on the head of a winged angel, who, by means 
of a simple contrivance manipulated from behind, was made 
to beat his breast in a rather ridiculous fashion. No doubt 
tliis huge mechanical toy brought forcibly, perhaps touchingly, 
to the minds of Shiah spectators that even the denizens 
of other worlds mourned the martyrdom of their Imam. 

While the tazias stood in their appointed places on the 
roadside, devout women were fanning them with palm 
leaves and horse-hair chauris (ily-flappers), and even with 
their own chaddars (veils). Some were Hindu women, 
probably unfortunate mothers, who thus paid respect to 
these effigies of the martyrs' tombs, in the fond hope that 
Imam Husain would graciously extend his protection to 
their surviving children and grant them long life. As a 
rule, the women who thus dedicate themselves to the service 
of the tazias do not sit down at all from the time the tazias 
are brought out from the tahiit khanas till they are finally 
disposed of at the local Karbala, a period which might well 
extend to twenty-four hours. In one instance I noticed a 
woman pinning on to a tazias with her own hands a paper 
on which her arzi (petition) to the martyr was written, and 
it need not be doubted that she did so in trembling hope of 
a favourable response. For the enjoyment of these special 
privileges the devotees have, in all probability, to make a 
contribution in money to the tazia building fund. 

From time to time some persons, for the most part 
women with babies in their arms, approached the tazias, 
and made trifling offerings of flowers, sweetmeats, and money, 
which gifts were formally accepted by the attendants, and 
some trifling return, generally a garland of small flowers, 

300 




Pholo by IV. Bull 



A TAZIA BELONGING TO A GUILD OF BUTCHERS 



To face fage joo 



THE MUHARRAM 

given in exchange by way of acknowledgment to the pious 
and now happy oblationer, who, beaming with satisfaction 
and hope, would place it without delay about her infant's 
neck. 

Many children were to be seen in the crowd wearing 
peculiar caps, and with tiny bells suspended round their 
waists. These little ones had been dedicated as it were 
to the Imam Husain at birth, or at some critical period 
of sickness or danger. 

So there before my eyes were exhibited in action those 
simple and touching sentiments which lie at the root of 
religion — solicitude for loved ones, and a trustful appeal 
for help to any unseen spiritual power that might possibly 
be won over by gifts or flattering attentions to hear and 
answer prayers. Woman's love, as always, was playing a 
leading part in the religious drama there unfolded, and, as 
always, man was reaping, in mundane currency and worldly 
goods, the harvest which sprang from the soil of her amiable 
and inexhaustible superstitions. My sympathies as a spec- 
tator were all with the dear women and their over-faith. 

Not far from the spot where the tazias had been placed 
two or three toy shops attracted attention. I noticed 
amongst the articles displayed in them, pictures of Jesus 
and the Virgin, but I satisfied myself that no images of 
the Hindu gods were for sale on this occasion. I presume 
their presence might have led to trouble. 

However, tazias or no tazias, the everyday life of the 
neighbourhood was by no means seriously interrupted. 
Near by, just on the roadside, but in his own verandah, 
a charcoal vendor, clad in a loin-cloth, was lying face down- 
wards on a low charpoy (a string-bottomed bed), and another 
man, supporting himself with a long stick, was walking 
about upon his prostrate body. It was not a case for police 
interference — no brutal assault was being committed. The 
charcoal merchant was merely having himself massaged 
after his day's work — perhaps he was suffering from lumbago 
— and for all he cared the whole world might look on while 
his ailment was being attended to in this, no doubt, efficient 
if rather primitive fashion. 

At a little distance, in the roadway, some pious persons 

301 



BRAHMANS, THEISTS, AND MUSLIMS OF INDIA 

had erected a stall where marsiyas or elegies were being 
read in Urdu by a young man as I passed along. It was 
a small temporary structure made up of low wooden tables 
about a foot high, over which daris (cotton carpets) had 
been spread. The stall had no roof or covering, the sides 
were made of paper, and the chief feature of the faqade was 
three moresque arches. 

The stall was lighted with three kerosine lamps, and 
ornamented with two or three vases and a pot of artificial 
paper-flowers of the rudest possible manufacture. A few 
women stood and listened respectfully as the young minister 
intoned the marsiyas, but the words, though spoken in what 
is officially known in the Punjab as " the vernacular," were 
unintelligible to the country-folk, who, having no inducement 
to linger about, passed on and went their way. 

As I was about to leave the bazaar, a band of purhiyds 
(men from the eastern districts of the United Provinces) 
arrived with a burst of tom-toming. Whirling rapidly with 
great skill long slender poles with lighted torches at their 
extremities, they traced curious and effective fire-figures in 
the air, while others showed off their skill in fencing, to 
the great admiration of the assembled crowds. This exhi- 
bition seemed to be the final event of the night's ceremonies, 
for almost immediately after their performance the streets 
began emptying rapidly, 

3. The Duldul Pkocession. 

Duldul is the name of the Prophet's mule which he gave 
to Ali, and the so-called Duldul procession takes place in 
the forenoon of the last day of the Muharram celebrations. 

To see the procession I, in company with a friend, 
entered the city of Lahore by the Delhi gate, and passing 
by the mosque of Wazir Khan, near which a number of stalls 
had been set up by fruiterers and others, we took up the 
best position we could secure and waited, and while we did 
so the sun beat down upon us with uncomfortable warmth, 
although it was only about seven o'clock in the morning. 
As we stood in the sweltry sunshine, we had time to take 
note of our surroundings. 

302 



THE MUHARRAM 

The street was crowded. At some distance to the right 
the minarets of the mosque of Wazir Khan made con- 
spicuous objects against the sky. On the left the view 
was closed by the three gilded domes of the Sonari Masjid. 
Just opposite, with one side on the narrow lane through 
which we had found our way, was a picturesque dwelling- 
house three storeys high. On the first floor, from a very 
low and curiously carved window, three or four women were 
watching the street, one a particularly good-looking one, 
with a large gold nose ring, and many silver ornaments. 
On the floor above was a quaintly carved balcony, flanked 
on either side by windows surmounted by half domes of 
the familiar Hindu type. A long balcony projecting well 
over the street gave character to the third storey, and was 
full of people. The roof itself afforded good accommodation 
for many spectators. The houses along the side of the 
street were a repetition, with many variations, of the 
picturesque residence just opposite us, and led the eye 
along interesting specimens of Indian domestic architec- 
ture to end in the glittering domes of the golden mosque. 
Across the road, just in advance of the spot where we had 
taken our stand, some pious Muslims had stretched a 
canopy of carpets from one side to the other, spanning 
the entire width of the street, reaching from housetop 
to housetop, high enough to allow the loftiest flagpole to 
pass beneath without hindrance. The spectators were 
orderly, quiet, and sober. As we waited in expectation 
with umbrellas over our heads to protect us from the 
sun, a man came up and very politely asked if we would 
kindly put our umbrellas down as the 7'dni in the closed 
carriage behind us could not see what was going on, and 
would be grievously disappointed if she failed to witness 
the procession, as it was only on rare occasions that ladies 
of her rank ventured out. Of course my umbrella collapsed 
at once, and one look behind afforded me a glimpse of the 
presumably beautiful princess as she peered through the 
Venetian blinds of her carriage (a pdlki gdri) to get a 
view of the throngs which filled the streets. 

Amongst those waiting for the Duldul I noticed a 
woman in dainty white garments carrying above her head 

303 



BRAHMANS, THEISTS, AND MUSLIMS OF INDIA 

a parasol of silver paper smothered under a profusion of 
real flowers which hung in threads from the centre. She 
was so eager to meet the procession that she pressed for- 
wards towards it, and a minute later I saw her a little way 
down the road sprinkling rose-water on the advancing 
mourners from an elegant spray bottle which she carried in 
her hand. This was doubtless an act of piety. 

Heading the procession which had at last arrived, came 
a number of Muhammadan gentlemen of good position, some 
of whom were well known to me. After them came several 
urchins carrying little paper parasols ornamented with 
fringes composed of strings of flowers and of raisins, which 
latter, as might have been expected, attracted flies in their 
myriads. Next came a batch of small boys beating their 
chests and crying in plaintive tones, " Husain ! Husain ! 
Husain ! Husain ! " as a refrain to words chanted by adult 
voices. It was interesting to note the evident sincerity 
with which many of these little folk entered into the spirit 
of the occasion, and how they literally ill-treated themselves, 
while others again made a mere pretence of beating their 
breasts. Then came four or five men bearing poles sur- 
mounted by big flags of black and green, and in one case of 
red material. Behind these banners marched a troupe of big 
boys, some of whom were quite fanatical in the earnestness 
with which they thumped their breasts with their hands, 
and, in a couple of instances, with small iron chains laid on 
with right goodwill. Following these bigger boys came a 
party of stalwarts stripped to the waist, many of them as 
fine specimens of manhood as one could wish to see. These 
adults were without doubt all thoroughly in earnest, as in 
deep, quick, jerky tones they cried Hasan — Husain ! Hasan 
— Husain ! Hasan — Husain ! and banged their bare chests 
with an energy that was positively distressing. The reader 
does not need to be reminded that the two brothers whose 
names were thus associated had both met violent deaths, 
though under quite dissimilar circumstances. The next 
place in the procession was taken by the chanters, followed 
by a led horse, which had not been ridden for the whole of 
the previous year, and would probably not be ever used 
again, its rich caparison disfigured with irregular red spots 

304 



THE MUHARRAM 

in imitation of blood, while many feathered arrows stuck in 
the trappings bore unmistakable witness to the terrible 
battle in which it had borne its gallant master. A profusion 
of flowers almost smothered the animal, and on one side (the 
left side) hung a fine large serviceable shield with brass 
bosses. 

Immediately behind the horse came the police guard, 
forming a cordon about the animal and its attendants. 
There were women also in the procession slapping their 
breasts in lamentation for Husain's martyrdom, but I am 
not quite sure whether they came immediately before or 
after the horse. The latter I think. 

Behind the force of constables, all of them on foot, 
rode the embodiment, for the nonce, of the British raj, a 
solitary Englishman with a resolute but bored expression 
on his face — the Assistant Superintendent of Police. 

4. Kakbala. 

At four o'clock in the afternoon of the day of the Duldul 
procession, I visited the local Karbala, a large open space 
near green juar fields. 

The afternoon was hot, but the sun was somewhat 
obscured by clouds, and a breeze was blowing which, at 
times, raised a great deal of dust. Many tazias were on 
the ground, amongst them a few elegant structures made 
of coloured paper and gold and silver tinsel, surmounted 
by Eastern domes and towers. 

But amidst this collection of " tombs " I was surprised to 
come upon what was virtually a fair with the usual merry- 
go-rounds, bustling groups of people — mostly women and 
children — and itinerant vendors of sweetmeats. Under 
awnings the savory Kabdhs were being cooked and sold to 
appreciative customers. 

Occasionally there was a deal of rushing about amongst 
the men, as something that promised to lead to a fight 
occurred anywhere. The native police seemed to be having 
a lively time of it to keep the peace and ensure order. The 
women, I must say, took everything very placidly, and did 
not put themselves out. I wandered about waiting for the 
u 30s 



BRAHMANS, THEISTS, AND MUSLIMS OF INDIA 

entombment of the tazias. At one end of the field, a 
number of huge graves were being dug, and in the further- 
most one I saw a tazia laid out. It was, however, too long 
for the excavation, and had to be cut shorter. All the 
pieces were put in, and then the pretty but flimsy structure 
was ruthlessly smashed down by two or three boys who were 
standing in the excavation. Bihishtis (water-carriers) with 
full leather bags were in attendance, and I noticed that some 
women who came on the scene handed pice to them — a 
meritorious contribution, no doubt, towards the good work. 
The hihishtis emptied their masKks on the fragments of the 
pretty bamboo and paper tazia as it lay prostrate in the 
trench, after which the men with their spades began to 
cover the debris over with earth. Several women, with 
touching piety, busied themselves throwing handfuls of earth 
into the grave, assisting in this way the obsequies of that 
which an hour before had been the object of their pride and 
admiration. 

Why the tazias, which are supposed to represent the 
tombs of the martyrs, should themselves be buried, seems, 
at first sight, rather strange ; but I suppose it is simply to 
put them away decorously as having duly served their 
purpose; so that the new year might bring its own fresh 
supply to do honour to the great occasion. And, after all, 
most of them were very fragile and of trifling value. Such 
of them as were of a better sort received different treatment ; 
for even in affairs of religion, economic considerations are 
rarely, if ever, forgotten. A close observer might easily 
notice here and there a substantial tazia of more solid and 
expensive construction being hastily covered up with white 
sheets and carried off quite unobtrusively without any noise 
or fuss. These better built and more costly tazias would be 
taken through quiet lanes back to the tabut khana whence 
they had been brought to Karbala, and would appear again 
in all their glory at the next and, may be, at many subse- 
quent Muharrams. 



306 



THE MVHA'REAM— continued 

Section IV. — A tale of Muharram rivalries. 

AS a pendant to the foregoing description 
of the celebration of the Muharram, 1 give 
the following characteristic story, which 
was told me by an old Muhammadan of 
the Suni sect, and which I now reproduce 
as if narrated in his own words : — 
" Years ago I lived for some months in a large military 
cantonment occupied by both European and native troops 
— infantry, cavalry, and artillery. I had gone there on 
account of the wedding of my sister, and was easily 
induced to spend some time with her husband's family, 
as the air and water of the place were good, and the life 
in a military station was new and attractive to me. 

" The General Sahib in this station was a great bahadur 
(swell), with lots of money, and he spent it freely. He was 
a really brave man too, and his breast was covered with 
medals. What with his bravery and his liberality, the 
sepoys all loved him as if he were their father. 

" Now the general was as much devoted to love as to war, 
and had a number of wives, amongst others a Mussulmani 
of the Shiah persuasion. She was a pretty woman, and 
had great influence with the general, who humoured her 
in whatever she wanted. Jewels and clothes she had in 
abundance, but her great ambition was to bring out the 
largest and most magnificent tazia at the time of the 
Muharram. Of course, all well-instructed Mussulmans 
know that it is not proper to make tazias, and still worse 
to carry them about with drums and shouting at such a 
solemn time of mourning as the Muharram. But the 
foolish Shiahs spend their money in this improper fashion 

307 



BRAHMANS, THEISTS, AND MUSLIMS OF INDIA 

every year, and think they are peiformmg a religious act 
when they are doing the very reverse. The general sahib's 
hegam was one of these, and the chief butcher of the 
station, a very wealthy man, was another, and they were 
great rivals in the matter. People said that they had 
once been more than friends, hence their senseless rivalry ; 
but, in truth, I knew nothing about this matter. 

" Every year the general would have a magnificent tazia 
made for the hegam, and as soon as one tazia had been 
left at Karbala, the work of constructing another, and a 
better one, for the next year's Muharram was taken in 
hand. Throughout the twelve months spies from either 
side were at work, trying to find out what the other party 
was about, and what the details of the form and dimensions 
of the new tazias might be. It was a grand piece of 
cunning, skill, and rich material, this annual tazia of the 
begam's, but there was invariably a worthy rival in the field, 
constructed at the expense of the chief butcher of the city. 

" I have, as becomes a strict Suni, always abstained from 
taking any part in the objectionable processions of the 
tazias ; but on this occasion, induced by the report of the 
rivalry of the hegam and the butcher, I went out to see 
their tazias, not without a hope — for I was young and 
strong — that there might be some marpit (fighting) 
between the rival parties, as does sometimes occur, not- 
withstanding the presence of the police. 

"In the evening of the appointed day the tazias were 
brought out, with a tremendous shouting and the deafening 
beating of drums. I never heard a greater uproar in my 
life. The noise and the excitement of the crowd astonished 
me. The hegam's tazia, headed and followed by police- 
men, was carried down one street, and the chief butcher's, 
similarly attended, was brought down another street. They 
gradually approached each other, and were finally deposited 
at a distance apart of about one hundred cubits in the 
main street of the Sudder Bazaar, not far from the Dargdh 
of one Sheikh Nanak Baksh. 

" A great many other tazias, built by influential people 
in the town, were also brought to the bazaar. None of 
them, however, could be compared with those of the hegam 

308 



THE MUHARRAM 

and the butcher. Multitudes of people came crowding about 
these two, admiring them and discussing their respective merits. 

"Whatever might be the opinions of the spectators 
respecting the comparative beauty and costliness of these 
two principal structures, this at any rate was evident to 
all interested in the matter or not, that the legams tazia 
towered some six or eight feet above its rival, and the 
hegam's friends rejoiced accordingly. As the night went 
on, the low-caste people, who make a fair of this solemn 
occasion, came out in hundreds with their huge poles 
lighted at both ends, and wheeled them round about, and 
above their heads most skilfully, making great circles of fire 
in the air. In their competition amongst themselves, under 
the stimulus of strong drink, these low-caste fellows, churas 
and others — got up many a disturbance, which was most 
disgraceful and annoying on an occasion which should have 
been observed with the strictest solemnity and mourning. 

" The next morning all the tazias were drawn up in a 
great procession to proceed to Karbala. The hegam's led the 
way, on the shoulders of not less than twenty-four selected 
men, the attendants in their pride throwing out, occasionally, 
various jeering allusions to the butcher's tazia just behind, 
which taunts were received in anything but an amiable spirit. 
When all had assembled at Karbala and the tazias had been 
placed once more on the ground, the astonishment of the 
onlookers knew no bounds on discovering, what was no 
difficult matter to do, for it was obvious enough, that the 
chief butcher's tazia was yards taller than the hegam's ! 

" ' Ya Husain ! Ya Husain ! ' shouted the butcher's friends 
like men demented, beating their breasts frantically with 
their open palms till they resounded again. 

"'Look at the miracle,' cried one man, and a great 
murmur went through the crowd. The hegam's people 
were overawed and stood in mute wonderment at the 
miraculous victory of their rivals, who rent the air with 
their shouts. There was no one in that crowd who felt 
the defeat more keenly than did the architect of the hegam's 
tazia, and, practical man that he was, he sneaked round 
and, unobserved, approached the now taller tazia quite 
closely. His quick eye detected that it had been built 

309 



BRAHMANS, THEISTS, AND MUSLIMS OF INDIA 

like a telescope, so that one portion fitted into another, 
and he concluded rightly that it had been made to groiv on 
the way to Karbala, He returned to his party and told 
them what he had found out. Hundreds pressed forward, 
denouncing the trick, and determined to expose it. The 
consequence was a free fight, in which every one took part, 
and both the big tazias were torn to pieces. All over the 
ground quantities of silver paper and gold paper, coloured 
and shiny paper of all kinds, mica and glass, bamboos and 
canes, were strewn about, and many heads were broken. 

"This was the chief butcher's first and last triumph 
over the hegam, for within a few weeks of the event he 
died of fever. His son purchased a valuable piece of ground 
alongside a famous shrine for his interment. A great 
many mourners followed the remains of the deceased, who 
had been a wealthy man. The usual ceremonies were duly 
performed, and the body committed to the earth to rest 
there till the last Judgment. The burial party was about 
to return homewards, when, lo ! to the surprise of every 
man, the grave cracked, a narrow fissure appeared, and a 
cloud of smoke commenced to issue from the ground. 

" ' Who is this that you have brought here?' asked the cus- 
todians of the neighbouring shrine. ' What man burdened with 
iniquities is this that the ground refuses to retain him, and the 
smoke ofjahannam, the bottomless pit, issues from his grave ?' 

" His sins and iniquities, whatever they were, could not 
have been hidden from Allah, and would be revealed at 
the resurrection of the dead, but as far as we knew the 
chief butcher had been a good Muslim and a charitable man. 
The Mulla, however, said that it was clear that Allah was 
angry with him because of his sinful rivalry with the hegam, 
and the unseemly trick he played with the tazia on the 
occasion of the recent Muharram, as such conduct was 
little short of an insult to Imam Husain, and not justifiable 
under any circumstances. 

" This judgment ought to have satisfied the hegam, but 
it would seem that, deprived of the excitement of the annual 
contest, which for years had been the chief object of her life, 
and bitterly chagrined at the butcher's final triumph, she be- 
came very ill and died before the next Muharram came round." 

310 



FAQUIRS 

OF SORTS 




CHAPTER II 

FAQUIRS 

Legends and stories of 
Muslim saints and 
religious devotees, 
both ancient and 
modern. 

T is no part of my 
plan to attempt 
to describe the 
distinguishing 
characteristics 
of Muhammad- 
an faquirs in 
their numerous 
orders, but Mus- 
lim ascetics are 
so conspicuous 
amongst the re- 
ligious mendicants 
one meets in India, 
that the following 
sketches in which 
they figure will 
probably throw 
some light upon 
the views in re- 
spect to the ascetic 
life held by a 
large and very 
important section 
of the Indian 
people. 



BRAHMANS, THEISTS, AND MUSLIMS OF INDIA 

It is well known that throughout the Muslim world the 
saints of Islam are credited with extensive miraculous 
powers, delegated to them hy the Almighty as a 'proof of His 
favour, and a measure of their deserts. To these favoured 
ones are attributed acts various in character and import- 
ance, such as, to mention only a few, the cure of ordinary 
diseases without the use of medicines, the raising of the 
dead to life, causing springs of water to flow in dry places, 
walking on the sea, flying through the air, becoming 
invisible, producing earthquakes, overturning mountains, 
being in two places at the same time, arresting the sun in 
his course, and punishing opponents by deadly pestilences 
and dreadful cataclysms. 

India has been blessed with the last resting-places of so 
many Muslim saints of the first importance that volumes 
might be easily written about the great virtues and striking 
miracles of the faquirs, whose tombs, often beautiful and 
imposing structures, lie scattered over the land, objects of 
deep veneration to all pious Muhammadans. 

Bearing the foregoing points in mind, the reader will not 
be moved to astonishment by any of the legends, or narra- 
tives of personal experiences, which I now record. 

1. A Legend of Bab a Faeid. 

I was conversing one day with a Mussulman regarding 
the fast of Bamazan just concluded, and remarking to him 
that in such excessively hot weather as we had been having, 
much hardship must have been experienced in observing 
the very strict rules of the fast. The Mussulman stated 
that after abstinence for a few days, the bodily system 
becomes habituated to the altered conditions of life, and 
does not feel the strain put upon it. In connection with 
this point I described to him Dr. Tanner's celebrated fast of 
forty days in America. The native listened without a word 
of comment, and then told me the following story about a 
famous Muhammadan saint named Baba Farid (a.d. 1173- 
1265), whose tomb was at Pak Patan on the road to Multan. 
The saint resolved to fast, not for a paltry forty days, but for 
no less than twelve years. He had a bit of wood shaped to 

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resemble a piece of bread, and whenever he was hungry- 
satisfied the cravings of his appetite by gnawing his wooden 
substitute for bread.^ After twelve years of this, he returned 
home. As he seemed rather inclined to take credit for what 
he had done, his mother remarked that his penance could 
hardly be considered satisfactory, seeing that he had always 
kept the thought of bread before him, and even had a 
semblance of the real substance at hand to allay his wish 
for food. Taking these remarks to heart, Baba Farid left 
home again for the purpose of performing another penance. 
This time he abstained from all ordinary human food, but 
lived simply upon the leaves of trees. After the expiration 
of a dozen years he turned his steps homewards, and on his 
arrival was welcomed with joy by his mother. One day 
caressing him in maternal fashion she noticed a grey hair 
on his head and pulled it out. He winced ; whereupon 
his mother expressed her surprise, and asked him how he, 
who shrank from having a single hair removed, found it 
in his conscience to strip the trees of their leaves during 
twelve long years, simply to sustain his own life. Struck 
by these reproachful remarks, the ascetic left home again, 
and for a third period of twelve years suspended himself 
head downwards in a well, without partaking of food of any 
kind, or even moistening his lips with a drop of water. As 
he hung in, the well the birds fed upon the flesh of his body, 
while the only favour he asked was that his eyes might be 
spared. When this great penance, if such it can be called, 
was accomplished, Baba Farid heard heavenly voices assur- 
ing him that his devotion had been accepted by Allah. 

At the tomb of this saint there is an annual fair on the 
fifth day of the Muharram, and Muhammadans in consider- 
able numbers come there to pass through a narrow gate- 
way known as the Bihisti Darwdza, or gate of Paradise, 
which leads to the Mausoleum, and is opened only once a 
year. 

^ " He (Baba Farid) was a thrifty saint, and for the last thirty years of 
his life he supported himself by holding to his stomach wooden cakes and 
fruits whenever he felt hungry." — W. Crooke, Popular Religion and Folk- 
lore of Northern India, vol. i. p. 216. 



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2. Baba Jungu Shah, a Punjabi Saint. 

This Muslim saint, as I learned from one of his fellow- 
countrymen, was in his younger days a very strong, active 
fellow, and a daring robber. In fact, all his family lived 
by plundering their neighbours. They went about the 
country armed, for it was in the time of the Sikh raj that 
they flourished by high-handed depredations. On one of 
their business visits to the town of Gujrat where they had 
reaped a good harvest, Jungu was appointed to remain 
behind as rear guard, to settle accounts with any one who 
might venture to pursue the party engaged in carrying off 
the spoil. As he lingered skulking near the wall of the 
house where the robbery had been committed, he observed 
some one looking over the wall, and unhesitatingly struck at 
him with his trusty sword. The blow, well delivered, seemed 
to sever the head from the body, and Jungu crouched down 
to await events. Again a head peered stealthily over the 
wall. " Surely," thought Jungu, " that is the very same man 
whom I decapitated only a minute ago." But it was no time 
for considerations of this sort, prompt action was needed ; 
so swinging his sharp blade with unerring skill and immense 
force, he struck the head off at a blow. With something 
akin to fear he looked up again, and to his horrified 
astonishment saw the same face looking at him sternly as 
before. Overcome with terror, the thief prostrated himself 
before the apparition, for such he deemed it, and joining 
his palms together, humbly placed himself at its disposal. 

" Go," said the apparition, " to the syad ^ who lives at 

(naming a village not far off), and ask him what you 

are to do." 

Jungu, obedient to the command, went off at once and 
narrated to the syad the startling events that had taken 
place. 

" It was Hazrat Ali, the son-in-law of our Prophet, who 
appeared to you," said the saintly man at the conclusion of 
Jungu's story, " and you are to stay here in order to learn and 
ever repeat a mantra (spell) which I shall teach you." 

' Syad, a lineal descendant of the Prophet Miihammad, 



FAQUIRS 

Jungu waited on the faquir as his humble disciple for 
some time, acquiring and practising the mantra which was 
duly communicated to him. His violence of temper did not, 
however, leave him, and one day, in a fit of rage, he killed 
his own mother and threw her body into a well. He escaped 
punishment for his shocking deed, as it was coimuitted in 
Sikh times when all sorts of lawlessness prevailed. 

But Jungu, struck with remorse, now embraced an ascetic 
life. He gave up his evil courses, and with them all worldly 
concerns. He sat idle all day covered with ashes, and 
hardly deigned to notice any one. 

For years and years he sat in the same place rubbed over 
with ashes, and with time his fame grew wonderfully. From 
all the countryside folks came to consult him about their 
ailments, or to invoke his assistance in times of domestic or 
public trouble. A pill made from the mud upon which he 
sat, if given with his own saintly hand, would cure almost 
any disease, and his help in other matters, too, was most 
efficacious ; for example, men often came and pestered him 
for assistance in some business or other pending in a law 
court. In such cases the Bala would sometimes wax wroth 
and chastise his too importunate visitor with a heavy stick 
for tormenting him. The beating would be taken in all 
humility, and then the saint, relenting, would probably say, 
" Go, brother, it is all right," and all right it assuredly was ; 
for, whatever the facts of the case might be, the Court was 
sure to decide in favour of the man whom the Bdba had sent 
away with cheering words. 

On the spot where Baba Jungu Shah was buried, a tomb 
has been erected, and is an object of veneration to the people 
near and far. 

The tombs of Muslim saints or men of consequence are 
commonly covered over with a cloth, which might, according 
to circumstances, be of any material, from an ordinary white 
cotton sheet to a valuable gold-embroidered coverlet. 

A devotee of Baba Jungu once brought a sheet worth 
four or five rupees and laid it over the grave. At night a 
thief came and removed it. The custodian when he missed 
it remarked, " Oh, Baba ! do you allow your property to be 
removed by thieves ? " A faint voice came from the grave, 

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BRAHMANS, THEISTS, AND MUSLIMS OF INDIA 

" I have no need of coverings, but the sheet shall be his to 
whom it rightfully belongs." 

In three days' time a half -starved man came to the shrine 
and restored the sheet. He was the thief who had stolen it, 
but he could not keep it. Do what he would, as long as he 
had the sheet about him he could not find his way home. 
Everything before him seemed dark and confused, but the 
moment he set his face towards the shrine, his way was 
clear. His attempts to carry it away being thus frustrated, 
he had brought the sheet back to its rightful owner. 

3. The Khazanaii-wallah Faquir. 

There came to the beautiful Himalayan station, Murree, 
while I was enjoying a holiday there, a pious Kashmiri /ag'wtV, 
who took up his abode near a small mosque in the bazaar. 
He made a stir in the place, and after he went away I 
learned from a Muhammadan who professed to have been 
much interested in his doings, the following particulars, 
which, whether accurate or not, are at least quite in keeping 
with the peculiarities of Indian life and Indian modes of 
thought, and therefore worth recording here. 

When people came to the good man, as they did daily, 
he would often, in the case of the very poor, return them 
silver coins for the copper ones they had presented to him, 
drawing the former from below the dari (carpet) on which 
he used to sit. Naturally his fame went abroad, and the 
holiness of Pir-ji, or the Khazanali-%vallah faquir (the wealthy 
ascetic) as he came to be called, was common talk in the 
town and the neighbouring villages. When he had been 
established in Murree for a short time a blind beggar came 
inquiring for him, saying he had travelled all the way from 
the Kashmir Valley in quest of the Khazanah-wallali faquir. 
He asked this one and that one to lead him to Pir-ji, and at 
last a good-natured person undertook to present him to the 
saint on the next Friday, after the hour of prayer, as Pir-ji, 
absorbed in his devotions, was not always accessible. On 
Friday the blind man was duly conducted to the mosque 
and taken up to the faquir. When he reached the good 
man he fell prostrate at his feet, saying, " Hazrat, I have 

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FAQUIRS 

sought you long. I have followed you, stone-blind though 
I am, from Kashmir along a difficult and dangerous road. 
Many troubles have I endured to gain your honoured 
presence. Have pity upon me ; have pity and restore your 
slave's sight. My children are starving because I am blind. 
Take pity upon us, for the sake of Allah the most merciful ! " 
Thus pleaded the blind man, but the saint heeded him not. 
The poor sufferer renewed his plaintive entreaties again and 
again, and, at length, touched by his faith and perhaj)s 
harassed by his importunity, the pir ordered some water to 
be brought. An attendant hastened to fulfil his command. 
While the wondering crowd looked on in hushed reverence, 
he poured a little of the water into the hollow of his palm, 
he blew upon it, uttered a prayer to Almighty God, and then 
dashed the handful of water against the closed lids of the 
blind man. Several times he repeated this, while the patient 
trembled visibly from the emotion which possessed him. 

The increasing crowd pressed closer and closer about 
Pir-ji and the sightless beggar. Eequesting the assembly to 
pray earnestly for the restoration of the poor man's vision, 
the ascetic applied his fingers to the beggar's closed eyelids, 
and gradually but firmly forced them open. Upon this the 
blind man recovered his visual powers so far that he could 
dimly discern objects about him. Grradually, under the 
healer's touch, the eyes regained their lost efficiency. The 
form of his benefactor became distinct to the patient, the 
presence of the wondering crowd of men and women was 
no longer only felt ; the lovely hills, the blue sky, and the 
glorious sun once more entered into the life of the man, thus 
strangely cured of his terrible affliction. 

In a transport of gratitude, the beggar declared that he 
would never, never leave Pir-ji. He vowed he would be hia 
humble and devoted attendant, and slave, as long as he lived. 

And remain he did. To remind him of his starving wife 
and children was useless; for in an ecstasy of pious con- 
fidence he would say that the hand which had restored him 
to sight would never let his children die for want of bread. 

Of course Khazanah-wallah Pir's fame increased mightily 
after his miracle. Crowds flocked to him, and in very self- 
defence from the pertinacious attentions of his admirers, he 

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BRAHMANS, THEISTS, AND MUSLIMS OF INDIA 

bad to seek strict seclusion. He hid himself in a house 
in some out-of-the-way place, and the quondam blind 
beggar constituted himself doorkeeper. The pir's hiding- 
place was soon discovered, but only deserving people got 
access to him, namely, such as were able to satisfy the door- 
keeper of their sincerity, their urgent need of spiritual or 
other help and — their ability to pay up. 

All went on pretty well for a time, till a certain Friday 
when Pir-ji emerged from his seclusion to go to the mosque 
for worship. There were several men and women waiting 
to interview him, but not paying any attention to them, the 
saint began to sniff about in a peculiar way. 

" There is a very unpleasant odour here," he said. " A 
very disagreeable smell, the smell of ill-gotten money," and 
looking very seriously at his self-constituted doorkeeper, 
cried angrily, " Begone for ever, under fear of the displeasure 
of God ! " 

Every one felt and admitted the justice of the sentence, 
because many had suffered from the doorkeeper's exactions, 
which had indeed been no secret, 

Pir-ji got still more honour from this act of his ; both 
on account of the spiritual insight which enabled him to 
detect the evil-doings of his unworthy servant and the 
summary justice which he had meted out to him. 

Applications for his help and favour increased in number, 
and amongst others, there came a man hobbling along with 
soiled rags about his feet and hands, dirtily clad and most 
likely a leper — an object of mingled pity and disgust. Pir-ji, 
having compassion on this miserable being, took him into 
his room and give him a bath with his own holy hands, and 
whatever his previous condition may have been, the unclean 
mendicant emerged whole and sound. 

The man thus wonderfully healed was installed as door- 
keeper to Pir-ji, but, such is the weakness of human nature 
in face of the temptation of money, that notwithstanding 
daily intercourse with the saint, and full knowledge of the 
unhappy, if deserved, fate of his predecessor, the new door- 
keeper could not refrain from drifting into similar objection- 
able courses. With unerring sagacity Pir-ji literally smelt out 
his unlawful cupidity, and angrily sent him about his business. 

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After this the good man was a martyr to the assiduities 
of his numerous and devoted admirers, who, though they 
gave him no rest, never came to him quite empty-handed. 
Daily a little pile of presents would accumulate before him, 
for it would have been indecorous for any one to approach 
him without a gift, yet it was well understood that the saint 
cared for none of these things, and that from his own 
mysterious treasury, he could, if so minded, produce as much 
gold and silver as he wished. 

However, one night Pir-ji himself disappeared, leaving 
no trace behind. He had gone, doubtless, because he wished 
to separate himself more effectually from the distractions 
and disappointments of a wicked world, but the unre- 
generate, with the perversity which characterises the 
class all the world over, began to suspect that the three 
Kashmiris were confederates who had been driven out of 
the Happy Valley by the famine prevailing there, and had 
found in the pious credulity of their co-religionists a 
means of escaping hard times, and of replenishing their 
empty purses. 

4. Adventures of a Pseudo-Faquie. 

A Mussulman named Amir belonging to a family of pro- 
fessional beggars, whose members, even should they happen to 
be rich, may not marry till they have solicited alms, for at 
least one day, did not care to confine his mendicancy to such 
a very limited time. Both amusement and profit might, he 
thought, be got out of an extensive begging tour, so he started 
on his travels with hopeful anticipations. 

In the course of his wanderings he reached a certain 
native State in the Bombay Presidency, and there, far away 
from his native Punjab, set up for a great saint. To give 
plausibility to his pretensions, he let it be understood 
that he lived without food, and consequently was in 
no danger of being starved to death ; of course, his 
fame spread abroad, and crowds came to visit this holy 
man from a far land, and to ask his help towards the 
attainment of their various desires. He began waxing 
quite rich from the offerings of the people, and excited the 

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BRAHMANS, THEISTS, AND MUSLIMS OF INDIA 

jealousy of the local sadhus and Brahmans, who represented 
to the Eajah that the man was a mere impostor and a 
wholesale robber of the people. Now the Eajah himself 
had at least one longstanding desire which the local clergy 
and professional sadhus had not been able to gratify. It 
was the desire, so common and so imperious in India, to 
have a son born to him. So, he went in person to the 
faquir and solicited his good offices towards this end. 
Amir promised him a son within the year, and in his heart 
resolved to put hundreds of miles between himself and the 
Rajah long before the twelve months should have run their 
course. The chief, elated by the ascetic's solemn promise, 
showered presents upon him ; but the astute local Brahmans 
were still influential enough to induce their Eajah to 
forcibly detain the Punjabi saint till the fulfilment of the 
prophecy, and they did not conceal from the faquir their 
private determination that if he proved to be a mere impostor 
he should lose his life for having imposed upon and robbed 
the people. 

Our seer, though honourably treated, was now, day and 
night, under police surveillance ; flight was impossible, and 
his only hope of saving his life lay apparently in the 
fulfilment of his prediction. Through the infinite kindness 
of Allah, his lucky star prevailed. Within the year a son 
was born to the Rajah, who, in his joy and gratitude, loaded 
the successful prophet with gifts of value. Having vindi- 
cated his power and good faith in the eyes of men, the 
wonder-working saint, now homesick, expressed a wish to 
take his departure, having, as he pretended, vowed a 
pilgrimage to the holy city of Amritsar. Thither he was 
permitted to go at the Rajah's expense, attended by an 
official escort worthy of his greatness and the important 
service he had rendered to the Prince. 

When he reached Amritsar he was quite near home, and 
his anxiety to escape public notice and possible recognition 
became very great ; so, bidding farewell to his escort, upon 
whom he bestowed his saintly benediction, he quickly 
sneaked back to his native city, Lahore, ivith his booty. 

On his way home from the railway station he was met 
and recognised by an intimate Muslim friend, who learned 

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fAOUIRS 

from his own lips the above story of his adventures and 
narrow escape, and the same day related the whole affair to 
me. 

5. The Influence of Faquirs in Secular Affairs. 

At the gate of my compound I observed a group of 
three persons, a mendicant faquir seated, a haniya 
saluting him with joined palms raised to his forehead, and 
a Muhammadan standing near by in a very deferential 
attitude. This somewhat heterogeneous group at my gate- 
way, backed as it was by the picturesque tomb of a Muslim 
pir, on the other side of the road, interested me, and when 
the Muhammadan referred to came in to pay his respects, 
I learned from him that the haniya was passing the faquir- 
sahih, and in the act of so doing made him a low salaam, 
saying, " Sir, I am going to my business, be pleased to 
extend your favour to me." The faquir took not the 
slightest notice of the Hindu's salutation. Such conduct, of 
course, proved his importance, so the Muhammadan stopped 
to take special notice of him, and at once discovered that he 
was a well-known ascetic who was in the habit of spending 
his time near the Lahori and Shahalmi gates of the city. 
He was much sought after by persons who were in trouble 
or longed for the gratification of some special desire. 

My informant said : Many seek the good man, but he 
is very inaccessible, they follow him about but he seems 
always to be eluding them. Sometimes to escape the 
importunities of his votaries, he hides himself in the houses 
of quite low or even disreputable people, publicans and 
sinners in fact, but his credit is so high that men come 
from distant places to gain his favour. As I expressed a 
wish for more particulars about this remarkable personage, 
I was told the following story : — 

It is well known to the native public that an important 
official in a native State incurred the unjust displeasure of 
his master, and was summarily removed from his high posi- 
tion. In his great trouble he came to faqtdr-sahib for help, 
but the man of God would not condescend to notice the fallen 
statesman. Discouraged but not despairing, the discarded 
minister followed the saint about persistently day after day, 
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BRAHMANS, tHEISTS, AND MUSLIMS OF INDIA 

showing him the greatest respect and attention. Weeks 
went by without the faquir deigning to so much as notice 
his petitioner. One day, however, irritated by the untiring 
importunities of the ex-official, he flew into a rage, and gave 
him a good beating with a stick, till he drew blood from 
him. Later on, mollified by the patient, uncomplaining 
humility of the fallen man, faquir-sahib said to him, " Go 
away, why do you persecute me? Your wish is already 
accomplished, you waste your time in following me." 
Never doubting the words of the man of G-od, the humili- 
ated courtier hurried off rejoicing towards his home, and 
on the way thither was met by a trooper who, respect- 
fully dismounting from his horse, handed him a letter, 
which was actually a summons from his august master, 
with a promise of reinstatement in his old position. 

After he had been reinstalled in his office he came 
and gratefully presented the faquir with a bag of rupees 
and a silk choga, for he felt certain that it was his devo- 
tion to the saint that had caused justice to be done to him. 

There and then the saint flung the rupees amongst 
the crowd. The silk choga he presented to a passing 
dervish. 

Of the faquir's past history I learned some further 
curious details. He was a Kashmiri, and in his younger 
days followed the very ordinary calling of a common 
porter. The ease with which he carried the heaviest 
loads on his head attracted the attention of his fellows, 
and close observation satisfied them that the burdens did 
not actually rest upon his head, but seemed to be floating 
in the air, as if carried by unseen hands. This uncanny 
circumstance went against him with his brother-porters, 
who objected to his being in their fraternity, and effectually 
" boycotted " him. There was nothing left for him but 
to become a religious mendicant. 

If this austere saint has a weakness it is to have himself 
attended to by the barber, and all the barbers who know 
him are only too glad to serve him, not only with an eye 
to prospective spiritual advantages, but for the immediate 
pecuniary benefit they derive from their professional 
ministration, for it invariably comes to pass that while 

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faquir-sahib is being attended to in the open air, probably 
under a tree by the roadside, some inquisitive person or 
other loiters about to see what is going on. Taking 
advantage of this, the faquir, as soon as the barber has 
done his work, simply but authoritatively directs the idle 
onlooker to pay the man eight annas or a rupee, just as 
the fancy takes him. The bystander, without demur, does 
what he is ordered to do, and the barber goes away rejoicing 
at such handsome remuneration. 



6. A Syad's Fire-Bath. 

Information reached me that a wonderful syad was in 
Lahore who would miraculously hathe in fire in the pres- 
ence of all who cared to see him do it. Admission 
to his performance could be gained only by duly paid-for 
tickets. 

Having purchased the needful passports, I went at 
the appointed hour to see him execute the advertised 
feat. 

Through a tall arched gateway I was admitted into the 
ample quadrangle of an Indian serai, having on each of the 
four sides an arcaded verandah running along the front of a 
range of little rooms provided for the temporary accommoda- 
tion of ]3assing travellers. In the centre of the court a 
considerable place had been rudely railed off with bamboos, 
and round it were ranged chairs and benches for the use 
of the spectators. The night was intensely dark ; the 
lighting of the place, if of quite primitive character, was 
suitable and efiective enough. On the top of posts set up 
at irregular intervals about the enclosed area, large earthen- 
ware saucers containing oil-seed flared away restlessly in 
the night breeze, producing smoke as well as light. At 
one extremity of the railed-off' space, a bed of glowing 
charcoal about twelve feet long and four feet wide was a 
conspicuous object, and round it, like gnomes or ghouls, 
two or three almost naked men were flitting about, now 
raking up the fire, now fanning it into a fierce glow, now 
beating it down to a level surface. 

All the chairs and benches were soon occupied by eager 

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BRAHMANS, THEISTS, AND MUSLIMS OF INDIA 

spectators, and a large number of men stood crowding up 
behind those who had secured seats, at rates varying from 
two to eight annas each. In the front row of chairs were 
a few Europeans of the lower ranks, subordinate railway 
employees, and suchlike. Eespectability was, of course, 
contemptuously absent from such a place as this ! No 
women, whether European or native, were present. A band 
of drummers and cymbalists placed near the field of fire 
treated us to such music as they could produce out of their 
instruments, in the way of rhythmic throbs and clangs and 
jingles, enlivened occasionally by strange demoniac cries 
from the musicians themselves. 

After considerable delay, during which the audience 
behaved in the most orderly manner, the &yad made his 
appearance in the arena with many attendants. He was 
a spare-built young man, a trifle above the average height. 
His attire consisted of a dark blue loongee or sheet tied 
round his waist, and a shirt of the same colour hanging 
over it and terminating about three inches above the knees. 
On his head he wore a crimson fez. As soon as the syad 
appeared, he commenced jumping about the place, shouting 
Husain ! Husain ! ! Husain ! ! ! in crescendo tones, till many 
Muslims present caught up and echoed back the cry with 
fervent enthusiasm. When he had shouted for a few 
minutes in this way, and worked up the feelings of his 
audience, the syad commenced a long harangue proclaiming 
in well-turned sentences his own unworthiness and his 
utter insignificance in the sight of God. He tlien protested 
that his miraculous fire-bath, as performed by him in many 
places in the presence of thousands of spectators, was 
possible only through the help of Imam Husain, a state- 
ment received with appreciative applause by many followers 
of the Prophet, who had mustered in force on this occasion. 
But the syad went on to tell us that there might be sceptics 
and cavillers who would say that he protected his person by 
some chemical substance or other from the effects of the fire, 
and so, in order to disabuse our minds of any such erroneous 
notion, he would, as a preliminary step, give himself a water- 
bath in our presence. Off went the red fez and also the 
blue shirt, and the syad, seated on a chair, called for hihishtis 

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(water-carriers). A score or more were present with their 
goat-skins full of water in readiness for this event. The 
syad, who had taken up a position quite close to where I 
sat, now enjoyed an elaborate cold water bath, soaping 
himself freely and having a deluge of water poured over 
him, which caused the ground for many yards around 
to become a puddle and nothing else. When his ablu- 
tions were over, he resumed his red fez and blue shirt. 
More haranguing now followed, more deafening shouts of 
" Husain ! Husain ! ! Husain ! ! ! " responded to again and 
again by the excited Muslims. By this time clouds of inky 
blackness were gathering fast overhead, angry flashes of 
vivid lightning and low muttering thunder warned us that 
a storm was brewing and would soon be upon us. The 
assembly becoming impatient of mere harangues and 
shoutings, made noisy demands for the promised exhibition, 
and at length, after at least two hours of fooling, the 
business of the evening was reached. Our syad, waving a 
bamboo with a flag at the end of it, capered wildly about 
the place, and then with loud cries of " Husain ! Husain ! " 
ran rapidly over the bed of almost white-hot charcoal from 
end to end. He was certainly barefooted when he did 
this ; but as he often ran over the spot which the hihishtis 
had deluged with water, the soles of his feet could not have 
been otherwise than moist, and most probably coated with 
damp mud. 

Enthusiasm amongst the Muslims now waxed stronger 
and stronger, and volunteers came forward to essay the 
perilous run over the coals, avowing their firm trust in 
Imam Husain and complete confidence in the syad's help. 
With the rest came a young Hindu, who offered to run over 
the live coals without any help at all ; but he was rudely 
hustled to the rear, protesting with emphasis against the 
unfair treatment he was receiving. Two or three men now 
crossed rapidly over the coals one at a time, while the syad 
himself ran along the ground beside the adventurous hero 
of the moment, holding him by the hand encouragingly. 
How they all fared, I could not tell ; but one man certainly 
complained aloud that he had been cruelly burned. He 
demanded of the syad to ease his pain, and bewailed his 

325 



BRAHMANS, THEISTS, AND MUSLIMS OF INDIA 

own sufferings as only an Oriental can do. But the syad 
could not help one who was obviously enduring the just 
penalty of his own want of faith. So the moaning and 
groaning went on. 

" The fire-Lath ! the fire-bath ! " cried the impatient 
people, and after some more talk and some more shouting 
of " Husain ! Husain ! " the syad, with clothes and cap on, 
and sitting quite low, allowed a follower to pour over his 
head a pan of live charcoal. There were so many of his 
followers clustered round him, and the dying light from the 
cressets was so uncertain, that I could not see very well 
what occurred; but there was a good deal of commotion 
and tremendous shouting over the event, though the risk to 
the performer seemed ridiculously small. Eollowing the 
master, a disciple came forward and underwent a similar 
ordeal. I stood up to see what was going on. Scarcely 
had the live charcoal reached his head when he sprang 
to his feet and leaped about. The glowing pieces fell on 
all sides as they would naturally do; the attendants and 
the followers of the Prophet shouted "Ya! Husain" in 
exultation. 

As ill-luck would have it, however, one bit of red-hot 
charcoal had effected a lodgment in a fold of the cap of the 
performing Muhammadan, and it began to smoke visibly. 
When his attention was drawn to what was going on, he 
removed his cap with ludicrous haste, and smothered the 
fire between his hands, to the great amusement of the 
unbelievers present. 

By this time the big rain drops began to hiss upon the 
bed of lighted charcoal, a downpour of rain was imminent, 
and the assembly broke up hurriedly. 

Exaggerated and incorrect accounts of the night's doings 
found their way into both English and native local news- 
papers, and probably the syad is already numbered amongst 
the miracle- workers of this generation. 

The performance as such was not nearly as satisfactory 
as some of a similar kind described by writers who have 
witnessed them elsewhere in India, and also in Polynesia, 
Japan, and other places ; but some interest attaches to the 
instance I have brought before the reader because of the 

326 



FAQUIRS 

fact that the performers were Muslims, the leader professing 
to act under the protection of Imam Husain, the Prophet's 
grandson.^ 

Europeans have seen and described instances of fire- 
walking performed by natives of India, not only in their 
own country — as at Benares in 1898 — but in Mauritius and 
Trinidad also. However, Indians do not enjoy a monopoly 
or this art, for the practice of fire-walking is known in Fiji, 
the Society Islands, the Straits Settlements, Japan, Bulgaria, 
and no doubt in other places also. Some Europeans, for 
example Colonel Judgson at Earatonga, have, it is stated, 
actually gone with the performers barefooted over red-hot 
stones, and escaped scathless. 

Some modernised Hindu sadhus, who gave such exhibi- 
tions, modestly aver that the ability to perform the miracle 
is a manifestation of Divine grace,^ while others claim that 
it is by their incantations and ceremonies that they are able 
to subdue the fierce heat of the fire.^ 

The Shinto priests of Japan affirm that their God, 
propitiated by acceptable religious ceremonies, casts out 
the soul of the fire, and thus makes manifest his power 
to his faithful followers.* The Polynesian hereditary fire- 
walkers, who do not always have recourse to incantations 

^ An interesting description of a wonderful display of rival fire-walking 
by a wicked magician and a saintly "Friend of God," will be found in the 
story of Sidi Ikhlef (a.d. 1552), narrated by Colonel Trumelet in his Les 
Saints de VIslam, Paris, 1881. In this story the magician walked scathless 
over a bed of burning wood, performing his perilous journey barefooted and 
without haste. The saint of course outdid his rival, for he actually halted 
in the midst of the flames, which bent down to lick his feet, and there 
rested himself in the furnace, surrounded by tongues of fire. 

2 " Fire-ivalking Miracle. — The residents of Benares were afforded one 
more opportunity of witnessing the 'fire-walking miracle.' Maharajah 
Bahadur Sir Jotindra Moliun Tagore, who is now at Benares, invited the 
Civil and Military Officers at the station, as well as the native nobility and 
leading gentry of the place, to witness an exhibition of this 'miracle,' which 
was to take place on the 6th instant. Jangam Baba, the saclhu who performs 
this miracle, claims his performance as a manifestation of Divine grace, and 
challenges scientific men to account for it in any other way." — The Tribune, 
(Lahore). 

3 "Les Dompteurs du Feu," by Dr. Th. Pascal {Annales de Sciences 
Psychiques, July-August 1899). 

* "The Shinto Fire-Walkers of Tokio," by Miss Ozaki (a Japanese lady), 
in the Wide World Magazine for December 1899. 



BRAHMANS, THEISTS, AND MUSLIMS OF INDIA 

or religious ceremonies of any kind, declare that they 
possess power over the heat and the destructive energy of 
fire. An Indian domestic to whom I mentioned this matter, 
assured me that it was a well-known fact that many persons 
possessed the mantra or spell for " tying u2J fire." He was 
acquainted with some cooks who when they coveted a 
particular situation would " tie up " their rival's fire, so 
that with ever so big a blaze under the pot, there would 
be no cooking done. Of course, the rival cook, deprived 
of the heat necessary for preparing food for the table, would 
get into trouble with his employer and be dismissed ; and 
the possessor of the mantra, if he played his cards well, 
would be installed in his place. 

It cannot be denied that there is ample testimony to 
prove that certain persons, in various parts of the East, 
are able to walk barefooted for a few yards over a bed 
of white - hot charcoal or stones, and suffer no injury 
thereby ; but unfortunately no explanation that adequately 
accounts for the various phenomena in this connection 
described by professed eye-witnesses has, as far as I know, 
been yet put forward.^ 

7. The Faquir of Manasbal. 

On the banks of pretty lake Manasbal in the valley of 
Kashmir, there used to live some years ago — perhaps he 
lives there still — an old faquir who had acquired a sort of 
reputation from the fact that he had with his own hands 
constructed the grave in which he was eventually to lie. 
There could be no doubt, after five minutes with the old 
man, that he was proud of his work, of the attention it 
received from visitors, and the consideration it seemed to 
bring to himself. 

On one of my visits to Manasbal he conducted me very 
ceremoniously, but with ill-concealed pleasure, to see the 

^ Readers who care for more particulars on this subject are referred to 
Mr, Andrew Lang's Modern Mythology, chapter xii. and his article "The 
Fire- Walk " in the Proceedings of the Society of Psychical Research, February 
1900. An excellent summary may also be read in the English Mechanic, 
9th and 16th March 1900. 

328 



*4'';/ -i ^V. 




FAQUIRS 

grave which he had prepared for himself at the further end 
of a tunnel some fifty or sixty feet long, which had been 
excavated in the hillside entirely by his own hands. 

Although the " rock " through which he had worked was 
not hard, still his labour had not been inconsiderable, for 
the tunnel he had excavated was over six feet high, and 
wide enough to allow two persons to walk abreast in it. 
At the end of it was a chamber containing the gaping 
sepulchre. As became a pious recluse, the proud owner of 
the grave discoursed in the usual way about the uncertainty 
of life, and the fleeting, illusive enjoyments of this world, 
while drawing my attention to the neatness and cleanliness 
of his future and last abode. For the present the good 
man lived alone, in a very neat cottage, cultivated a small 
patch of ground adjoining, and grew upon it the most 
delicious peaches. Of some of these really excellent fruits 
of his labour he made me a formal present, and, hermit 
though he was, did not disdain a return in the shape of 
current silver coin, for which I fancy he could find many 
good uses. Strange stories, not always to his credit, were 
told about the Manasbal faquir by his Kashmiri country- 
men ; but as far as I could learn his greatest claim to the 
consideration he expected and certainly received, was the 
strange grave he had made ready by his own toil for the 
reception of his body after death. 

The devotee and his grave have for a generation been 
well known to travellers in Kashmir, and have been 
mentioned in books relating to that country. 

Opposite this page is a photograph of the hermit, for 
which he posed willingly enough, not having quite ex- 
tinguished in his breast the insidious vice of vanity, which, 
by a strange irony, was encouraged and kept alive by his 
open grave, which was intended no doubt in the first 
instance as a symbol of his detachment from this world 
of sorrow, and as an indication of his desire for an early 
release. 

8. The Name of God. 

Four or five faquirs who had in the usual way been 
roaming about the country, like mediaeval wandering 

329 



BRAHMANS, THEISTS, AND MUSLIMS OF INDIA 

scholars, happened to meet casually at Lahore, and, as is 
the wont amongst such persons, fell to discussing various 
abstruse matters connected with theology and metaphysics, 
airing the ideas they had formed or picked up in their inter- 
course with thoughtful men in many cities. 

A Muhammadan with whom I was in constant touch, 
and who had an especial weakness for the society ol faquirs, 
being himself in diligent quest of a competent alchemist 
and transmuter of metals, found himself in their company 
and listening to their discourse, was struck by the subtlety 
they displayed, and charmed by the manner of their speech. 

"While they talked," he said, "it was as if roses 
fluttered about from mouth to mouth." One anecdote or 
story which was related by one of the faquirs especially 
took the Muslim listener's fancy, and was retailed for my 
information. As an illustration of the kmd of talk indulged 
in by some of these wandering devotees, it seems worth 
reproducing here. 

There once lived a faquir who, it came to be known, 
would not utter the name of God. Pious people were sur- 
prised and scandalised at such behaviour on the part of a 
professedly religious man, while the wicked and light-minded 
would annoy the man when they met him by calling upon 
him to utter the word " Allah." His invariable answer was 
" lahoul" the initial word of an Arabic text used as an invo- 
cation against evil spirits. Such very unseemly behaviour 
became a subject of comment, and he was at length sum- 
moned to appear in person before the Great Mogul Emperor 
Akbar, when the following dialogue took place : — 

" What conduct is this of jowiq, faquir-sahib ? " inquired 
the Emperor. "It is reported that you, a professedly 
religious man, object to utter the name of God ! Surely this 
is the conduct of a Kafir (infidel), and should be punished 
with death. What have you to say for yourself ? " 

" Am I already condemned. Great King, or is your 
Majesty willing to hear me ? " asked the faquir. 

" Speak ! " said the Emperor sternly ; " I listen ! " 

"Is there amongst your Majesty's courtiers any men 
who have the good fortune to be regarded by their master 
as heroic and noble personages ? " 

330 



FAQUIRS 

"Yes, many," replied the Emperor, "but amongst my 
generals there are four who, I believe, arc quite unmatched 
in heroism throughout the wide world." 

"And amongst these four, is there one whom your 
Majesty considers especially deserving of honour and esteem, 
and standing in the very first rank of men ? " 

" Yes, there is one pre-eminent even amongst the band 
of heroes I am proud to have about me." 

" May I, G-reat King, speak to this hero aside, and has 
he your gracious permission to do as I ask him to do ? " 

" Yes, I freely afford him my permission to do anything 
proper and reasonable." 

The accused led away the great noble to a retired corner 
of the Durbar and requested him to go up to the Emperor 
on his throne, and say to him these words and these words 
only, " Akbar, the faquir has desired me to stand before 
you." 

The great noble refused to carry out this request ; but 
after a little while returned to his place near the Emperor. 

" Ask the great nobleman, sire," said the accused man, 
"if he has done what I, with your Majesty's permission, 
bid him do?" 

Interrogated on this point, the courtier had to admit 
that he had not carried out the faquir's wishes. "They 
were," he said, " too outrageous. The man actually wanted 
me to come forward in open Durbar and address our lord, 
the Emperor, familiarly by his name." 

The ceremonial propriety of the courtiers was shocked 
at the indecorous suggestion ; but the faquir addressing 
the Emperor said : " Now, Great King, if a courtier next 
to yourself in rank will not venture to accost your Majesty 
— who, after all, are only an earthly sovereign — by your 
august name, do you wonder at my hesitating to pronounce 
the name of the Divine King of Kings, the Almighty Euler 
of the Universe ? " 



The few examples I have given of faquirs and their 
doings, and of the stories current about celebrated Muslim 
saints, will be sufficient to indicate a very marked contrast 

331 



BRAHMANS, THEISTS, AND MUSLIMS OF INDIA 

l^etween the standpoint of the Muhammadan in relation to 
Allah, and that of the Hindu towards his gods. The Hindu 
sadhu or saint acquires supernatui^al power over himself, 
his fellow-men, and nature generally by virtue of ascetic 
practices, even in spite of the lesser deities of his Olympus ; 
whereas the Muslim saint derives his prepotency only 
through the favour of the one God. This striking dis- 
similarity is of course due to the uncompromising mono- 
theism of Islam on the one hand, and the polytheism lost 
in pantheism of the Brahmans on the other ; and though it 
may be admitted that the Indian Muslim legends are often 
tinged with Hindu feeling to a considerable degree ; that the 
mystic doctrines of the Sufis were probably derived from 
Hindu philosophy and that the Brahmanical caste system 
has, to some slight extent, influenced the social arrangements 
of certain Indian Muhammadans, nevertheless there is no 
possibility of any effectual bridging of the abysmal gulf which 
separates the two great religions of India, Hinduism and 
Islam. 



332 



INDEX 



Abbas, brother of Imam Husain, 288. 
Abdal, the, Muhammadan caste, 62. 
Abd-ur-rahmaii, assassin of Ali, 283. 
Abubakr, Muslim khalif, 283. 
Acharaja, the, low-easte Brahman 

priest, 267, 268, 269, 270, 271, 

273. 
Adam, Mr., missionary, 102. 
Adesh, Keshub's doctrine of divine 

immanence, 123-124, 130, 131, 

132, 134-135, 147, 153. 
Adhmarag, the, outside Lahore 

crematory, 265, 267, 268, 269. 
Adwaitism or Pantheism of Sankar- 

acharya, 156. 
Afghanistan, 76. 
Africa, South, racial feeling in, 69- 

70. 
Africans, West, in America, 67-68. 
Agni, personification of fire, 11, 140. 
Agra, Taj of, 276. 
Ajlaf, social Muhammadan division, 

62. 
Ajmere, sati at, 192. 
Akalis, the, 253. 
Akbar, Mogul Emperor, Swami'sstorv 

of, 168-169. 
Akhra, human sacrifice attempted 

at, 8. 
Al-Bakia cemetery, 62. 
AlexandraGirls' School, Bombay, 210. 
Al-Hur, Muslim officer, 285', 286, 

287. 
Ali Akbar, son of Husain, 287, 288. 
Ali Ashgar or Abdullah, son of 

Husain, death of, 288. 
Ali, Khalifah, Muhammad's son-in- 
law, 282, 283, 284. 
Allah, 293, 313 ; worship of, 4, 332. 
Allies, Thomas W., author of The 

Monastic Life from the Fathers of 

the Desert to Charlemagne, 273. 
Alviella, D', Count, author of Con- 

te.m2>orary Evohition of Eelicjious 

Thought, 146. 
America, 172, 215 ; caste system in, 

52, 67-69, 86-87 ; Civil Warin, 38 ; 



Theosophists of, 32 ; Unitarianism 

in, 148-149. 
Amma, Hindu goddess, 82. 
Amma Kodagas Brahmans, the, 82. 
Amrit Kund (Amritsar), 262, 263. 
Amrita (the water of life), 259, 260, 

262. 
Amritsar, 198, 255, 258, 262, 320 ; 

temperance play at, 173, 
Andichya Brahmans, the, re- 
marriage of widows among, 199. 
Angir-asnwriti, the, 181, 185. 
Anjuman-i- Punjab, Muslim Society 

of the, 220. 
" Apostle of Temperance," the, 172. 
Apostolic Durbar of the "New 

Dispensation," 146. 
Arabia, 285. 
Arabs, the, 284. 
Arjuna, a hero of the Mahabharata, 

10, 144. 
Armenia, 76. 

Army, Indian, the, 58-59. 
Arno's Vale Cemetery, 108. 
Aryans, the, 7, 31, 76, 77, 78, 79, 

80, 81 ; Brahman, 55, 80. 
Aiya-Samaj, Hindu sect, hall of 

the, 213. 
Aryavarta, 30. 
Aryo-Dravidians, origin of the, 77, 

80. 
Arzal, Indian jMuhammadan social 

division, 62. 
Ashraf, Indian Muhammadan social 

division, 62. 
Ashurad, sacred day of, 282. 
Assam, 56, 81. 
Assyi-ians, the, 26. 
Asuras, the, 259, 260. 
Atarva, the, Vedic hymns, 76. 
Ayishah, wife of Muhammad, 79, 283, 
Azadah, a Brahman, 41-42. 

B 

Baba Farid, Muhammadan saint, 

312-313. 
Baba Jungu Shah, a Punjabi 

saint, 314-316. 



333 



INDEX 



Babylon, 26, 285. 

Baden-Powell, H B., author of The 

Indian Village Community, 77, 

78. 
Bamacliari, sect of the Saktas, 27. 
Bangalore, 95, 
Barada Brahmans, remarriage of 

widows among the, 199. 
Basantotsava (spring saturnalia), 

248. 
Bediya, the, Muhammadan caste, 62. 
Behar, sati at, 192. 
Benares, city of, 95, 101, 221, 265, 

327 
Bengal, 3, 4, 5, 6, 26, 27, 28, 42, 56, 

80, 100, 104, 117, 130, 170, 183, 

184, 186, 208, 223, 248 ; Bank of, 

117 ; Brahmans of, 59 ; Brahma 

Samaj in, 110 ; people of, 4, 7, 

28, 32-33, 100 ; religion of, 24, 26, 

30. 
Bengalis, of Mongolo - Dra vidian 

race, 7. 
Bentinck, Lord William, 192. 
Bezwada, 41. 
Bhagavad-gita, the, 144. 
Bhairob, a form of Shiva, 15. 
Bhaktas, section of Samajists, 130 ; 

inspiration of, 131. 
Bhakti (living faith), Keshub's belief 

in, 124. 
Bhandarkar, Professor, C.I.E., 

pamphlet of, 182, 200. 
Bhattacharjee, Dr. J. N., author of 

Hindu Castes and Sects, 13, 26, 27, 

37, 42, 46, 81. 
Bhattias of Bombay, Hindu caste, 

excommunication of, 43. 
Bhattias of Hurdwar, the, Hindu 

caste, 43. 
Bhera, 198. 
Bhikhaji, Dadaji, lawsuit of, 178, 

179. 
Bhojakas of Jvalamiikhi, the, 82. 
Bihishtis, the (water-carriers), 306. 
Bihisti Darwaza, at tomb of Baba 

Farid, 313. 
Bindraban (place of God's presence), 

268. 
Bobbili, Maharajah of, 41. 
Bolpvir station, the, 144 ; chittim 

tree at, 115. 
Bombay, 56, 164, 176, 208, 210, 

319 ; Governor of, 200. 
Bose, Babu Jogindra Nath, 116, 209. 
Bose, Shib Chiinder, awtliox oi Hindoos 

as they are, 16, 23, 27, 42, 48, 175, 

223 ; remarks on Hindii society, 

155. 
Bose, Suresh Chunder, supports 

Mozoomdar, 148. 



Brahma, Hindu god, 50 ; legend of, 
13-14. 

Brahmaism, attitude of, to Christi- 
anity, 151, 156-157 ; leaders of, 
150 ; political aspect of, 155-156 ; 
social aspect of, 154-155 ; spiritual 
aspect of, 156 ; spread of, 153, 154. 

Brahmanas, the, 52, 103. 

Brahmans, the, 13, 26, 28, 35, 90, 
106, 107, 320; Bengali, 59, 80; 
conversions by, 82-84 ; customs of, 
39, 41, 60, 209 ; employments of, 
58-59, 94, 219, 261-262 ; insolence 
of, 37, 40, 69 ; marriage among, 44, 
56, 58, 81, 184 ; position of, 49, 
50, 51-54, 55, 73, 80-82, 84-85, 95, 
96-97 ; sub-castes of, 56, 58, 59. 

Brahma Samaj, Adi (Brahnio Samaj, 
BrahmoSomaj), Hindusect ; chapel 
of, 114-115 ; creed of, 100, 105, 
110, 111, 112, 114, 115, 151 ; 
mandir (church) of, 105, 110 ; 
number of, 110, 116 ; private life 
of, 112-113, 119, 120 ; schism in, 
113. 

Brahma Samaj of India, Hindu re- 
forming sect, creed of the, 113-114, 
118, 129-133, see Adesh and 
Keshub ; discord in, 147-150 ; 
mandir of, 129, 132, 140, 152; 
marriages in, 118-120, 132, 198 ; 
schism in, 130-133, 137 ; strength 
of, 119, 131, 149; works with 
American Unitarians, 148. 

Brahmavidyala (a school), 114. 

British Government, Indian, 88-89, 
94, 96-97, 102, 153, 160, 166, 185, 
189, 198, 199, 200, 201, 290. 

Browne, Sir Thomas, author of 
Hydriota])Ma, Urn-Burial, 273. 

Browning, Oscar, author of hniwes- 
sions of Indian Travel, 92, 232-233. 

Buckland, C. E., author of Bengal 
under its Lieutenant-Governors, 114.' 

Buddh Gaya, the, Bodhi tree at, 115. 

Buddhism, 81, 101. 

Bulgaria, fire-walking in, 327. 

Bura Brahmans, the, 59. 

Burne, Rev. T. H., 117. 

Burton, Sir R. , author of Pilgrimage 
to Al-Madinah and Mecca, 61-62. 

Busra, Mbaidullah, governor of, 285. 



Caird, author of The Evolution of 
Religion, 97. 

Calcutta, 6, 7, 8, 22, 41, 90, 91, 100, 
102, 103, 105, 108, 111, 129, 133, 
149, 159, 214, 299 ; description 
of, 3-4 ; Presidency College at, 



334 



INDEX 



113 ; sati at, 193 ; Town Hall at, 
124. 

Carpenter, Mary, author of The Last 
Days in England of the Eajah Ram 
Mohun Roy, 107. 

Castes, American, 67-69, 70-71, 
86-88 ; Hindu commerce, influ- 
ence of, on, 34-35, 36-37, 38, 93 ; 
Crozier, Dr., on, 86-88 ; divisions 
of, 49-50, 55, 56, 57, 188 ; educa- 
tional influence of, 93-94 ; eH"ect of, 
I on Christian Hindu converts, 74 ; 
I effect of, on European, 40-41, 44, 
1 63 ; European, 64-67, 69, 71-72, 
I 88, 159 ; expulsion from, 46-47, 
61, 88 ; family life, influence on, 
I 60, 93 ; Muslim, 61 ; origin of 
i new castes, 42, 43, 58, 76-79, 82- 
\ 85 ; political aspect of, 92 ; rules of, 
\ 34-36, 39-48, 60, 88-96 ; tribunals 
of, 44-45 ; weakening of, 41-42, 
88-89, 90, 95-98, 113, 114. 

Cawnpore, sati at, 193. 

Census of India Report, 55-57, 62, 80. 

Chaitanite, Hindu sect of Bengal, 
19-20, 24. 

Chaitanya, Bengali prophet, 20, 124. 

Chamars, the, Hindu caste, 56. 

Champier, M., 187. 

Chandalas, children of mixed Hindu 
marriages, 44. 

Chandrayana, a Hindu penance, 
185. 

Cheltenham, Ladies' College at, 215. 

Cheruman cultivators, the, 57. 

Chicago, 144, 148. 

Chitral, 77. 

Christianity in Bengal, 24 ; Brah- 
maism, attitude of, to, 156-157 ; 
conversion to, 107, 155, 214-215 ; 
Keshub's views on, 113, 118. 125- 
134, 135, 139, 140, 141, 142-143, 
145, 152, 156-157 ; Muhammadan- 
ism, conflict with, 280. 

Chuckerbutty, Jadoo Nath, letter of, 
123. 

Chunder, Bholanath, author of 
Travels of a Hindoo, 222. 

Civil Marriage Bill (India), 119-120. 

Claviere, R. de Maulde la, author of 
The Women of the Renaissance, 
187. 

Cochin, census report, 56. 

Coconada, 36, 38. 

Collegia, Roman, 64. 

Collet, Miss E. B., author of The 
Brahma Ycar-Book for 1877, 131, 
156. 

Constantine, constitution of, 64. 

Constantinople, 280, 287. 

Cooch Behar, Rajah of, 132. 



Coorg, 82. 

Cotton, Bishop, 117. 

Cox, Mr., author of Mythology of the 
Aryan Nations, 11. 

Crooke, W., author of The Popular 
Religion and Folk-lore of Northern 
India, 250, 275, 313. 

Crozier, Dr. John, author of Civilisa- 
tion and Progress, 86. 



Ddbistan, The, 27, 41. 

Daksha, incarnation of Brahma, 13. 

Dakshinachari, sect of the Saktas, 
27. 

Darbal Janazah, 62. 

Das, Guru Ram, 262, 263, 

Dayabhaga, the, 181. 

Delhi, 5 ; Emperor of, 106. 

Derozio, H.?L. V., 103, 104. 

Deva Dhamia Mandir, Lahore, 212, 
213. 

Devi, goddess, 19. 

Dhanvantari, Hindu god, 259. 

Diocletian, Emperor, 64. 

Distant, W. L., author of A Mono- 
gr^aph of the Oriental Cicadidce, 
25. 

Diwa-wattee lamp, the, 266, 274. 

Doms, the, Hindu caste, 56. 

Dosahra, the, festival of, 25. 

Dravidian, Aryo-, 77, 80 ; Brahmaus, 
the, 55, 82 ; Mongolo race, 100 ; 
race of, 80, 81 ; conversion to 
Brahmanism, 84. 

Dvija, "twice-born," caste division, 
49. 

Dubois, Abbe J. A., 106, 204-205. 

Dutf, Dr. Alexander, missionary, 
13, 104, 108 ; author of India 
and Indian Missions, including 
Sketches of the Gigantic System 
of Hindtdsm-, 1 5. 

Duldul, Muhammad's mule, 302 ; 
procession of, 302, 305. 

Durga, the wife of Siva, Hindu 
goddess, 11, 18, 22, 24 ; descrip- 
tion of, 21 ; Pujah procession, 22- 
23, 25 ; worship of, 24-25, 136. 

Dutt, Mr. Shoshee Chunder, 97. 



Eastern thought compared toWestern , 
127-128, 135, 136, 210, 213. 

Education, influence of, 32, 224-226, 
261-262 ; female, 208, 215 ; on 
widows, 215-216. 

Egypt, 285. 

335 



INDEX 



Egyptians, the, 273, 274, 276. 
Eucharist, the, Keshub's adaptation 

of, 140. 
Euphrates, the river, 286, 289, 294. 



Faquirs, Muhammadan, stories of, 
311, 312, 314, 316, 319-321, 328, 
330 ; influence on secular affairs, 
321 

Fatima, 292, 296, 297, 298. 

Fatima, the son of, 285, 287. 

Fergusson, Dr., author of History of 
Indian and Eastern Arcldtecture, 
5. 

Festivals, Hindu, Basantotsava, 248 ; 
Dosahra, 25 ; Durga-puja, 8, 23, 
25 ; Hola, 252 ; Holi, 242, 252 ; 
Kali, 8 ; Suraj-Kanth, 220. 

Festivals, Muhammadan — Duldul 
procession, 302 ; Kasim's marriage 
procession, 297 ; Muharram, the, 
279. 

Feudatory princes, 160. 

Fiji Islands, the, 327. 

Fraser, Mrs. Mary Crawford, 226. 

Freemasonry in India, 231-232. 

Frogmore, 276. 

Funerals, Hindu, 264. 



G 

Gaekwar of Baroda, the, 210-211. 

Gait, Mr., 62. 

Gajadhur, Hindu fanatic, 8. 

Gandharvas, place of, 50. 

Ganesa, Hindu God of Wisdom, 18, 

244 ; temple of, 19. 
Ganges, the river, 5, 13, 77, 219, 

260, 265, 274, 275, 
Garbhadhana ceremony, the, 182. 
Gautama, Hindu god, 115. 
Ghamat, K. E., Parsee, author of The 

Present State of India, 235. 
Ghazis, Muslim fanatics, 281. 
Gibbon, historian, 289. 
Gidumal, Dayaram, LL.B., C.S., 

author of The Life and Life-work 

of JBehramji M. Malabari, 181, 

183, 191, 195. 
Gilgit, 77. 

Godavery, the river, 36. 
Goodeve, Dr. Henry, 107. 
Golden temple, the, Amritsar, 258- 

259. 
Goswamee, Bijoy Kessen, letter of, 

123. 
Gotras, Hindu patriarchs, 53. 
Gouda Brahmans, the, 60. 



Greeks, knowledge of Hindu castes, 
55 ; social customs of, 77. 

Grunth Sahib, The, sacred book of 
the Sikhs, 255. 

Gujarati Brahmans, the, 58 ; re- 
marriage of widows among the, 199. 

Gujrat, 314. 

Guru, Hindu spiritual guide, 46 ; 
Brahman, 58 ; worshipped, 122- 
123. 

Gusains, Hindu sect, 268. 

H 

Hafsah, Muhammad's third wife, 
283. 

Halalkhor, Muhammadan caste, 62. 

Halicarnassus, mausoleum at, 276. 

Hardwar, 233, 274. 

Hartmann, Edward von, 141. 

Hasan, Khalifah, Muhammad's 
grandson, 282, 283, 284. 

Hastinapur, 249. 

Hastings, Wari'en, 100. 

Heraclitus, doctrine of, 33. 

Hijrah, flight of Muhammad from 
Mecca, 285. 

Himalaya (Himavan), goddess of 
mountains, personification of sati, 
14. 

Himalayas, mountains of the, 101. 

Himalayas, valleys of the, 25. 

Hinduism, 8, 22, 30, 32, 81, 82, 99, 
102, 107-108, 120-121, 125, 138, 
151, 155, 161 ; conservatives of, 
161 ; the "Higher" Hinduism, 30, 
32 ; legends of, 22, 50, 53, 259, 
260, 262-263 ; polytheism of, 11, 
19, 21, 81, 101, 102 ; reformers 
of, 100, 111, 113, 129, 133, 141, 
151, 158-162, 165-166, 167, 176, 
229, 256 ; Scriptures of, 55, 110- 
112, 136, 209 ; universality of, 
144. 

Hindu College, the, 103. 

Hoernle, Dr., 77. 

Hola, festival of, 252-255. 

Holi, festival of, 241, 250-251, 252, 
254 ; the pure, 256. 

Holika, Hindu, She demon, 250. 

Hom ceremony, the, 140. 

Hone, William, author of Ancient 
Mysteries described, 295, 

Hugli in Bengal, 290. 

Hugli River, the, 3, 5. 

Hunter, Sir W. W. , author of Life 
of the Earl of Mayo, 89, 192. 

Husainabad, the, Lucknow, 290. 

Husain, Imam, 282, 284, 285, 286, 
287, 288, 289, 293, 294, 295, 296, 
299, 301, 324, 325, 327. 



336 



INDEX 



I 

du'l-Azha or Id'-i-Zuha, Muslim 
feast, 281. 

Idu'1-Fitr, Muslim feast, 281. 

Iluvan or Tiyan caste, the, 57. 

Imambara, Shiah theatre, 290, 295. 

India, aborigines of, 77, 79, 81, 82- 
84 ; Central, 61 ; commercialism 
in, 94 ; Eastern, aborigines of, 12 ; 
religion of, 30, 99 ; Northern, 39, 
56, 76, 230, 264, 282, 297 ; slavery 
in, 80 ; Southern, 56, 80, 264 ; 
Western, 56, 232 ; Upper, 248. 

Indian Reform Association, 129. 

Indian universities, 212. 

Indra, Aryan personification of the 
atmosphere, 76. 

Indra, place of, 50. 

Infant marriage, custom of, 180-190. 

Ingram, J. K., author oi The History 
of Slavery and Serfdom, 64. 

Islam. See Muhamraadanism. 



Jacquemont, M. Victor, naturalist, 

author of Voyage dans I'lnde, 105, 

106. 
Jadah, wife of Hasan, 282, 283. 
Jagadhatri,aHinduaspectofGod,138. 
Jainism, religion of the Jains, 81. 
Jangam Baba, fire-walker, 327. 
Japan, 326, 327 ; old family system 

in, 225 ; Shinto priests of, 327. 
Javala Brahmans, the, 60. 
Jerusalem, 280. 
Jetpur in Kattywar, infanticide at, 

194. 
Joshee, Mrs. Anandabai, 215. 
Judgson, Colonel, 327. 
Jumna River, the, 77, 219. 
Jiis co7imihii, Hindu, 43, 44. 



K 

Kabir, Hindu reformer, 108. 

Kaffirs, European treatment of, 69-70. 

Kali, the black tongue of Agni, 11. 

Kali, Hindu goddess, 5, 6, 8, 12, 18, 
19, 21, 24, 25, 136 ; character of, 
7, 10-11, 12, 15-16; description 
of image at Calcutta, 9-10, 11, 15 ; 
legends of, 12-13. 

Kali-Ghat, temi^le of, 4, 8, 9, 15, 19, 
132 ; description of, 5-7 ; legend 
of, 13 ; priests of, 7 ; sacrifices at, 
17 ; sanctity of, 15. 

Kali-ism, character of, 16, 20 ; 
votaries of, 15-16, 17-19. 



Kalil'a Parana, Hindu sacred book, 8. 

Kamina, Muhammadan social 
division, 62. 

Kammalan, Hindu caste, 57. 

Karali, the terrific, tongue of Agni, 11 . 

Karbala, 300, 305, 306 ; battle of, 
282, 283, 286, 289, 290, 292, 293, 
294, 296. 

Karhade Brahmans, the, 26. 

Karma (actions in pre-\aous life), 31, 
61, 81, 112. 

Kashmir, 5, 80, 328. 

Kasim, Husaia's nephew, 288, 296, 
297, 298. 

Kaveri Brahmans, the, 82. 

Kayastha caste, the, 26. 

Kesh, Pandit Rishi, article in Journal 
of the Anjuman-i- Punjab, 248. 

Keshub Chunder Sen, Hindu re- 
former, 113, 114, 119; author of 
Diary in England, 126 ; activity of, 
117, 130 ; appreciation of, 146- 
147 ; ascetic orders, initiates, 131 ; 
biographical sketch of, 129 ; 
Britain, visits, 126-128, 129 ; 
character of, 117, 122, 137, 156 ; 
death of, 145-147 ; decline of, 131- 
133, 137, 143 ; lectures, 124, 126, 
127-128, 130, 135, 136, 138, 142, 
143, 144, 145 ; marriages, infant, 
on, 183 ; moral play, produces, 
142; Max Miiller, letter to, 141 ; 
observances of, 139-140, 142 ; 
views of, 123, 124-126, 127-128, 
129-130, 131, 134-135, 136, 137, 
138, 140, 141, 142-143, 147, 151, 
152, seeAdesh, also "New Dispensa- 
tion," the; worshipped as divine, 
122-124, 154. 

Khazanah-wallah faquir, 316. 

King, C. W., author of The Gnostics 
and their Remains, 12. 

Kolis, the 199. 

Koran, texts from the, 297. 

Kowls, the, sect of the Saktas, 27. 

Krichchhra, the, Hindu punish- 
ment, 48. 

Krishna (Vishnu), Hindu god, 10, 
14, 19, 24, 30, 52, 124, 140, 144, 
244, 250, 264. 

Kriya-Yoga-Sara, the, 52. 

Kshatriyas, the, Hindu caste, 35, 
49, 50, 52, 54, 56, 60 ; extermina- 
tion of, 53. 

Kufa, 282, 283, 285, 286, 289, 294. 

Kularabis, the, Hindu caste, 199. 

Kulinism, 28, 29. 

Kulins, Brahmans of Bengal, the, 
28, 59, 184. 

Kunbigors, the, Brahman sub- 
caste, 58. 



Y 



337 



INDEX 



Kundoo, sacred pond (Calcutta), 5, 

19. 
Kurakshatra, battlefield of, 53. 
Kurta of the Muchooa Bazaar Street, 

Lahore, the, 132. 
Kusha, sacred grass, 269. 



Lahore, 5, 17, 39, 132, 148, 154, 

163, 198, 212, 241, 242, 265, 275, 

299, 302, 320, 323, 327. 
Lalbegi, Muhammadan caste, 62. 
Lai, Piyare, B.A., 210. 
Lang, Mr. Andrew, author of 

Modern Mythology, 328. 
Lashmi, a Hindu aspect of God, 138. 
Lawrence, Lord, 118, 135. 
Leadbeater, C. M., author of The 

Other Sick of Death, 32. 
Lecky, W. E. H., 276. 
Leonard, G. S., author of History of 

the Brahma Samaj, 100, 102, 112, 

132. 
Lhassa, 25. 
Liddon, Canon, 15. 
Loki, Teuton god, 11. 
Lortet, Dr., 274. 
Lucknow, 7, 39. 
Lyall, Sir Alfred, author of Asiatic 

Studies, 120. 



M 

M'Crindle, Dr. J. W., author of 

Ancient India, 55. 
Madana (Cupid), Hindu god, 248. 
Madina, 294. 
Mahabharata, the, Indian epic, 10, 

51, 53, 111, 259. 
Maha-Brahman priest, the, 267. 
Mahadeva, a Hindu aspect of God, 

138. 
Mahadeva (Siva), Hindu god, 18, 

244 ; temple of, at Lahore, 265. 
Maha-Patra, "the great vessel," 267. 
Mahisha, the, giant, 21. 
Mahratta country, the, 26, 
Mahtab, B. C, Maharajah of Burd- 

wan, 224. 
Main, Sir Henry, 119, 120, 197. 
Malabari, Behramji, Parsee, 176-177, 

185. 
Manasbal, the faquir of, 328. 
Mandir of Kali-Ma (Calcutta), the, 6. 
Mani Khel country, the, 280. 
Mann, laws of, 46, 49, 111, 183, 199. 
Mara the Evil One, 115. 
Marriages, European, 186 ; Brahmic 

Church in, 118-120, 154 ; Hindu, 



43, 179, 181 ; mixed Hindu, 44, 
232 ; infant, 175-177, 209 ; Mu- 
hammadan, 179, 188 ; Parsee, 179 ; 
test case, 178-179. 

Maruts, place of, 50. 

Mauritius, 327. 

Maya (illusion), female form of, 
260. 

Maydhasoor giant, the, 249. 

Maypur in the Punjab, sati at, 192. 

Mazumdar, B. C, on the origin and 
history of Durga, 23. 

Mecca, 233, 285, 286, 290. 

Medina, 285. 

Megasthenes, ancient Greek am- 
bassador, 55, 181, 209. 

Mill, John Stuart, 128, 168. 

Miracles of Kali, 17-19. 

Missionaries, Christian, 256-257. 

Mithila, Brahmans of, 26. 

Mitra, Dr. Rajendra Lalla, author of 
Indo-Aryans, 8, 16, 25. 

Mittra, Peary Chand, author of A 
Biographical Sketch of David Hare, 
104, 108. 

Mlecchas, the, 95. 

Mochigors, the. Brahman sub-caste, 
58. 

Mongolian race, 80-81. 

Mormons, the, 87. 

Moses, Keshub's communication 
with, 140. 

Motherhood of God, Keshub's 
doctrine of the, 136-137. 

Moulvis, the, of Patna, 100. 

Mozoomdar, Mr. P. C, 148 ; death 
of, 149 ; travels of, 148 ; author of 
Aims and Principles of Keshnb 
Chunder Sen, 130 ; and Faith and 
Progress of the Brahma Samaj, 
137 ; and Oriental Christ, 149. 

Muawiyah, Muslim Khalifah, 283, 

Muhammad, the Prophet, 133, 179, 
283, 293, 294. 

Muhammad (al-Mahdi, Imam), son of 
al-Hasan al-Askari, 284. 

Muhammadans, Indian, 34-35, 102, 
108 ; castes of, 61, 62, 73, 280 ; 
descent of, 281 ; influence of, 99, 
100, 101, 105 ; Keshub's views on, 
142 ; marriages of, 199 ; number 
of, 280 ; religion of, 25, 125, 280- 

281, 295 ; saints, see Faquirs. 
Muharram celebration, the, 279, 

282, 290, 295, 296, 297, 302-307 ; 
month of, 285, 313. 

Muir, Dr., author of Original 

Sanskrit Texts, 50, 53. 
Muir, Sir William, author of The 

Calijjhate: Its Pise, Decline, and 

Fall, 288, 289, 298. 



338 



INDEX 



Miiller, Prof. Max, author of 
Biographical Essays, 103, 141 ; 
on infant marriages, 183 ; Indian 
fables, 217 ; Keshub's cliaracter, 
146. 

Multau, 220, 312. 

Murree, Himalayan station at, 316. 

Musjids, the, 6. 

Mythology, Indian, 11. 



N 

Nakhawilahs of Madinah, Muslim 

caste, 61. 
Nanak, Hindu reformer, 108. 
Naoroji, Mr. Dadabhai, M.P., 164. 
Narayana (Vislmu), Hindu god, 259, 

260. 
Natal, 69. 

Nath, Dewan Narindra, M.A., 165. 
National Congress, Hindu, the, at 

Lahore, 163-164, 166. 
Nature goddesses, worship of, 26. 
Navrab Asaf-ul-Daulah, the, 290. 
Nayar, Hindu caste, 56. 
Negroes, their status and treatment, 

67, 68, 69, 71. 
Nepal, kingdom of, 96 ; Brahmans 

of, 60, 199. 
Nepal, mountains of, 25. 
Nesfield, John C, author of Brief 

View of Caste System of the North- 
Western Provinces and Oucle, 57, 

275. 
"New Dispensation," Keshub's, 137- 

138, 139, 140, 141-144, 145, 148, 

152. 
Nimtollah Burning Ghat, the, 115. 

145. 
Noble, Miss, author of The Wch of 

Indian Life, 185, 206. 



Odin, Teuton god, 11. 
Olympus, the Hindu, 13. 
Orissa, 248. 

Ozaki, Miss, author of The Shinto 
Fire- Walkers of ToJcio, 327. 



Padma Purana, the, 52. 

Padri, Goraknath Ka, Hindu priest, 

271. 
Pak Patan, tomb at, 312. 
Panchayats, system of, 45. 
Pandits, Kashmir Brahmans, 37, 39- 

40, 95, 111. 



Pantheism, Hindu, 27, 28, 30-32, 33, 

81, 101, 105, 131, 136, 147, 156, 157. 

Pantheon, the, Greek, 6 ; Hindu, 12, 

82, 136. 
Pant, Vishnu, a Kashmiri Pandit, 39. 
Paraiyan (Pariahs), Hindu caste, 57, 

69. 
Paraka, the, Hindu punishment, 48. 
Parasharama, Hindu demi-god, 53. 
"Parliament of Religions," the, 

Chicago, 144, 148, 149. 
Parsees, the, 217 ; ladies, 209, 217, 

232. 
Parusha Sukta, Vedic hymn, 50. 
Parvati (Sati's personification of), 

Hindu goddess, 14, 244. 
Pascal, Dr. Th., author of Lcs 

Bomjjteui-s du Feu, 327. 
Passion Play, Muslim, 291. 
Patiala, Native State of, 172. 
Patna, 100. 
Paul, St., 125. 
Pelly, Sir Lewis, author of l^ie 

Miracle Play of Hasan and 

Husain, 291, 294. 
Persia, 76, 291, 292. 
Persians, the, 284. 
Pescara, Marquis of, 186. 
Philadelphia, 215. 
Phoenicia, 26. 

Piajapatya, the, Hindu punish- 
ment, 48. 
Pipilika Chandrayana, the, Hindu 

punishment, 48. 
Pir Ali, Muslim official, 42. 
Pirali Brahmans, the, 42. 
Pir-ji, Muslim faquir, story of, 316- 

319. 
Polynesia, fire-walkers of, 326, 327. 
Pool of Immortality, Amritsar, 258. 
Poona, 200, 215. 

Prahlad, Hindu prince, 250-251. 
Prayaschittam ceremony, the, 41. 
Premdevi, Hindu lady lecturer, 

212-213. 
Presidency College at Calcutta, 113. 
Provinces. Central, 56, 172, 223, 248 ; 

North -West, 223 ; United, the, 80, 

93, 172, 249, 267. 
Pujaris, Hindu officiating priests, 18. 
Pulayans or Cherumans, the, 57. 
Punjab, the, Aryan invaders of, 77 ; 

bathing in, 218-221 ; Brahmans 

in, 26, 58, 80 ; caste in, 80, 82 ; 

Temperance Associations in, 172. 
Puranas, the, 214. 
Purbiyas, the, 302. 
Purdah, the, 129, 130, 203. 
Purohits (family priests), 40. 
Purumhunso, the, Hindu teacher, 

221. 



339 



INDEX 



Quakers, the, 67. 

Qninet, Edgar, author of Lt ginie dcs 
Religions, 13. 



Race-prejudice, genesis and evolution 

of, 68-69, 72-73. 
Radha, mistress of Krishna, 19. 
Radlianagar. 100. 
Rahu, evil demon, Hindu legend of, 

259, 260, 262. 
Railways, elfect on caste, 95. 
Rajputana, 56, 80. 
Rajputs, the, 199. 
Raiua (Vishnu), 30. 
Ramayana, Indian epic, 53. 
Ramazan, Muslim fast, 233, 281, 

312. 
Ranade, Mr. Justice, 165. 
Rani of Jhansi, famous Brahman, 59. 
Raratonga, 327. 

Ravi River, the, bathing in, 217. 
Redemption, doctrine of, Muslim and 

Christian, 295. 
Rees, J. D., 93. 
Registrar of Co-operative Crtdit 

Societies (India), 93. 
Reincarnation, doctrine of, 14, 31, 

32, 62, 81, 102, 112, 122, 273. 
Religion, the, future of the world, 

127-128, 136, 141, 144-145. 
Remarriage of widows, 197-199. 
Rig, the, Vedic hymn, 76. 
Risley, Mr., census report of, 56,79,85. 
Roberts, Lord, author of Forty-one 

Years in India, 90-91. 
Roman customs, 64, 77 ; empire, 97. 
Rowbotham, J. E., author of Trou- 

hadours and Courts of Love, 31. 

Roy, Ram Mohun, founder of 

Brahma sect, 100-103, 105, 106, 

107-109, 110, 113, 117, 150, 152 ; 

author of A Translation of the 

Ahridgmcnt of the Vedant or 

Resolution of all the Feds, 102 ; 

and The Precept of Jesus, the 

Guide to Peace and Happiness, 

102 ; and MtisUm Literature, 151. 

Rukhmabai, a Hindu girl-wife, 178. 

Ruqaiyah, Muhammad's daughter, 

283. 
Ryder, Dr. Emma, author of Little 
Wives of India, 205. 



Sacrifices, Hindu, 5, 7-8, 17, 30 ; 
human, 7-8, 196 ; of widows 



(Sati), 13-14, 102, 108, 109, 191- 
192, 196-197. 
Sadharam Brahma Samaj, the, 

Theistic sect, 133, 152, 154. 
St. Mary, Wantage, Sisters of, 214, 

215. 
Saiva Yogis, the, 264. 
Sakhtas Brahman, the, 60. 
Saktas, sect of, 26. 
Sakti, Hindu goddess, 26, 27, 28, 

136. 
Sama, the, Vedic hymns, 76. 
Samadhs, Hindu cenotaphs, 265,266. 
Sanathan Dharma Sabha ,219, 252. 
Sandracottus, Hindu king, 55. 
Sannyasis, the, 264. 
Santapana, the, Hindu punishment, 

48. 
Sarasvati, Pandita Ramabai, 213, 

214. 
Saraswata Brahmans, the, 60. 
Saraswati, Hindu Goddess of 

Learning, 209. 
Saraswati River, the, 219. 
Sarswatee, aHindu aspectof God, 138. 
Sastri, Pandit Sivanath, M. A., founder 
of Sadharan Brahma Samaj, author 
of The New Dispiensation and the 
Sadharan Brahma Samaj, 111, 
133, 139, 140. 
Sati. See Sacrifices. 
Sati, daughter of Brahma, 13-14, 15. 
Scythians, the, 80. 
Senart, M., author oi Les Castes dims 

Vlnde, 43, 53, 58, 77. 
Sen, Karvana Chunder, 145. 
Sen, Keshub Chunder. See Keslmb. 
Sepoy Revolt, the, 59, 89-91 ; army, 

96. 
Serampore, missionaries of, 102. 
Shabaks, a class of Samajists, 130. 
Shahrbanu, wife of Husain, 292. 
Shakas, the (parts of the Vedas), 53. 
Shakespeare, 117. 
Shamir, Muslim commander, 286, 

287, 288, 289, 292. 
Sharaf, Muhammadan social division, 

62. 
Shastras, the, 59, 111, 113, 155. 
Shea and Troyer's translation of 

Ddbistan, 27, 41. 
Shenavi Brahmans, 60. 
Sherring, author of Hindu Tribes 

and, Castes, 201. 
Shiahs, sect of Muhammadans, 280, 
282, 283, 284, 287, 290, 291, 294, 
295, 296, 298. 
Shiva, Hindu god, character of, 15 ; 
image of, 15, 261 ; story of, 13, 14. 
Shridevi (Kali), goddess, 25. 
Siapa, system of mourning, 166. 



340 



INDEX 



Sidi Ikhlef, story of, 327. 

Sikhism, 81. 

Sikhs, the, 35, 172, 247, 252, 253, 

255, 258, 262. 
Simla, 118. 
Sinduvala Brahruans, remarriage of 

widows among, 199. 
Singh, Maharajah Ranjit, Sati at 

funeral of, 192. 
Siva, the great god, 10, 12, 18, 21, 

264 ; temples of, 19 ; Avorship of, 

27, 30. 
Slater, T. E., author of Keshah 

Chandra Sen, 111. 
Smith, Dr. D. B., 184. 
Smith, Dr. George, author of Life of 

Dr. Alexander Duff, 102. 
Smritis, the, 47. 
Social Conference at Lahore, 1G3- 

165 ; intercourse between Euro- 
peans and Indian natives, 229-237 . 
Society Islands, the, 327. 
Sonari Musjid, 252, 303. 
Songs, immoral, at Hindu weddings, 

222. 
Spain, revolution in, 106. 
Spaniards in Calcutta, 106. 
Spencer, Herbert, 168, 276. 
Sri Krishan-ji, 243. 
Stanley, Dean, 128. 
Stephens, Sir Fitz- James, 89, 120, 

192. 
Strabo, 191. 

Strachey, Sir John, author oi India, 8. 
Straits Settlements, the, 327. 
Sudra, Hindu caste, 44, 49, 50, 52, 

53, 56. 
Sufi philosophy, 101. 
Sufi-ism, the, of the Persians, 113. 
Sufis, the, Muslim mystics, 280. 
Sunnis, the, sect of Muhammadaus, 

280, 282, 298. 
Sunyasi, the, 221. 
Suraj-Kanth, the festival of, 220. 
Surya, Aryan personification of the 

sun, 76. 
Sutras, the, 52, 95. 
Suttee, the cold, 195. 
Swami, lecture of, a Hindu of the 

Yogi sect, 167-169, 171. 
Syad, a lineal descendant of Mu- 
hammad, 314, 323. 
Syria, 285. 



Tabuts or Tazias, 298. 
Tage Brahmaus, the, 199. 
Tagore, Babu Dwijindra Nath, 114. 
Tagore, Debendra Nath, founder of 
Adi Brahma Samaj, 116, 151, 154 ; 



author of the Brahma Dharma 
Ghrantha, 111 ; chapel of, 114, 
115 ; character of, 113 ; cremation 
of, 115, 116. 

Tagore, Dwarkanath, 107, 108, 110. 

Tac;ore, Maharajah Bahadur Sir 
Jotindra Mohun, 327. 

Tanner, Dr., fast of, 312. 

Tantia Topi, famous Brahman, 59. 

Tantras, Hindu Scriptures, 7, 13, 26. 

Tantric worship, 25 ; nature of, 27. 

Tapta - Krichchhra, Hindu punish- 
ment, 48. 

Taylor, Eev. J. Vane, 199. 

Telegu or Madrasi Brahmans, 105. 

Temperance movement in India, 172, 
173, 174. 

Temple architecture, 4 ; teaching of, 
6-7. 

Temple women, 200-2. 

Theosophists, the, 32. 

Thugs, the, of India, 9. 

Tibet, tableland of, 25, 101. 

Tirah, 280. 

Tolly's Nullah, river called, 5. 

Transmigi'ation of souls. See Re- 
incarnation. 

Transvaal, treatment of natives in 
the, 69-70. 

Trigula Brahmans, the, 60. 

Trinidad, 327. 

Trumelet, Colonel, author of Les 
Saints de V Islam, 327. 

Tukta-posh, low table, 18. 

Tulava Brahmans, the, 195. 

U 

UbaiduUah, Governor of Busra, 285, 

286, 289. 
Umar (Omar), Muslim Khalifah, 283, 

287. 
Ummau Kulsum, Muhammad's 

daughter, 283. 
Unitarian Church, in America, 148, 

149, 152, 154, 157 ; in England, 

149, 152, 154, 159. 
Upanishads, the, 52, 103, 105, 111, 

136. 
Usman (Othman), secretary of Mu- 
hammad, 283. 



Vairagis, the, 264. 

Vaishnavas, the, 264. 

Vaisyas, the Hindu caste of, 35, 49, 

50, 52, 53, 54, 56, 113. 
Vaitarani River, the, legend of, 273. 
Yarna (colour), Sanskrit for caste, 

49, 76. 



341 



INDEX 



Vedanta philosophy, the, 101, 105. 
Vedas, the, 49-52, 76, 94, 136, 151, 

214, 219 ; Brahma Samaj criticism 

of, 110, 111 ; monotheism, of, 103. 
Vedi, the, 115, 147. 
Vedic hymns, the, 31, 50, 76, 103. 
Vishnu, the preserver, Hindu god. 

See Krishna. 
Vittoria Colonna, 186. 
Vivakananda, Swami, a Bengali 

Sadhu, 144. 

W 

Wahabis, the, Indian Muslim reform- 
ing sect, 280. 
Wantage, St. Mary's convent at, 214, 

215. 
Ward, Rev. W., A Vieiu of the 

History, Literature, and Religions 

of the Hindus, 27, 59. 
Wazir Khan, mosque of, Lahoi'e, 

302, 303. 
Wellesley, Marquis of, 102. 
Western civilisation, 127, 128, 136, 

201, 213 ; interpretation of Christ's 

teaching, 135. 
West Indies, 38. 
Westminster Cathedral, 7. 
White, Mr. Edward, 141. 
Widows in India, 176, 179-180, 

197, 223. 
Widows RemarriageAssociations, 197. 
Wilkins, Rev. J. W., author of 

Hindu Mythology, 8, 27. 
William, Fort (Calcutta), 3, 91. 
Williams, Sir Monier, author of 

Jieligioics Thoughts and Life in 

India, 7, 27, 37, 107, 125, 183. 
Wilson-Carmichael, Amy, author of 

Things as they core, 94, 202. 



Wilson, Dr. J., author of Indian 
Castes, 47, 48, 50, 52, 53, 54, 58, 
60, 82, 94, 96, 182, 184, 185, 195, 
199, 273. 

Wilson, Prof. H. H., author of 
Essays on the Religion of the 
Hindus, 27, 264. 

Wollaston, Mr. A. N., 291. 

Women, Indian — advocates of 
women's rights, 212 ; immodest 
bathing of, 217 ; life of, 203, 204- 
205 ; Muslim, 203, 292, 300 ; re- 
ligious instincts of, 16-17 ; the 
"new" Avoman, 223. 

Women's dress, 223. 



Yajnavalkya, Hindu lawgiver, 61. 
Yajur, the, Vedic hymns, 76. 
Yama, God of Death, realms of, 273. 
Yavamadhya Chandrayana, the, 

Hindu punishment, 48. 
Yazid, son of Muawivah, Khalifah, 

283, 285, 286. 
Yoga, the practice of, 114, 115, 140, 

141 ; Christ's, 135. 
Yogaism, 131, 136, 152, 157. 
Yogis, the, Hindu weavers, 264. 
Yogis, the, section of Brahma 

Samajists, 130, 131. 
Yudhisthira, Hindu king, 249. 



Zainab, sister of Husain, 289. 
Zarathushtra, 217, 232. 
Zemindar (landed proprietor), 102. 
Zenana, the, women's apai'tment, 

203. 
Zoroastrianism, 142, 



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